


A Leisurely Stroll Down

by Saturniidae



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Discussions about religion and faith, Domestic Fluff, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Lots and lots of biblical allusions, M/M, Mild Gore, Non-Explicit Sex, Post-Canon, So. Much. Fluff, Whump, because angels and demons are beyond human form
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-05-12 09:05:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 49,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19226008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saturniidae/pseuds/Saturniidae
Summary: After the Armageddon't, they take a stroll.





	1. Help me piece it all together darling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They end the Apocalypse That Wasn't chapter in their lives the same way they started it: Drunk as skunks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so many feelings, oh my god. So please, enjoy my blowing off feeling steam in the form of this series of drabble-y vignettes interconnected by a vague plot and a lot of fluff. It's been some time since I read the novel, but I've riffed off of it in places, but it follows the TV series' canon.  
> God help me I've never done footnotes here, I hope they work.  
> Chapter title: Quarter Past Midnight, Bastille

After the trial and the toast and a leisurely walk around the block in the pleasantly mild night, the shock of it comes.

It hits them both at the same time. All it takes is Crowley pausing mid-sentence, his lips parting without sound and then Aziraphale stops as well, their eyes locking.

He presses his fist to his mouth, trying to find words through the cold wash of horror that washes over him. Aziraphale makes a noise that reminds Crowley of a toad being stepped on[1]. Their thoughts, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, are entirely in alignment.

It’s a mutual realization: They both thoroughly expected to be smote during dinner, burned to a crisp by God’s own wrath, right there in the Ritz. Because even if their superiors were dumbshit enough to not put two and two together and make _Four, Oh Fuck They Swapped Places_ , God sure as hell wasn’t.

They exchange looks, nod, and turn towards Soho to get unspeakably plastered. Ideally even more so than they had the night that Adam had been brought into the world, though perhaps without as much talk about dolphins and mating out of water[2] and _The Sound of Music._

“My question isss,” Crowley slurs some hours later, waving his bottle about. He manages to knock over an empty wine glass, and it rattles as it rolls across the uneven floorboards. “What crawled up Gabriel’sss ass and died?”

“God, I expect.”

A beat, then, Crowley starts to laugh like he’s choking.

Aziraphale fumbles with his glass. “I, I did _not_ say that!”

“No take-backs! I already heard it! You really are a bastard, aren’t you?” Crowley says, hearing the warmth and wonder of it seep out of him, eyes wide with wonder. He means it as an endearment, just like he had at dinner, and judging by the look on the angels’ face, it’s taken the same way.

“You’ve said that twice tonight,” Aziraphale points out, leaning forward in his chair and shaking a finger at Crowley.

“You are! Bit of a bastard,” Crowley repeats, shaking his head. He grins and locks eyes with Aziraphale, and he feels something heavy settle across his shoulders, pressing on his chest.

Aziraphale, with his fussy waistcoats and fussy foods and voice and his inability to part with a single one of his books without great lamentation; with his wine-flushed cheeks and the tufty white-blonde hair mussed from drunkenly fussing with it as they prattled on about everything and nothing all at once[3].

A bastard, but the best sort, and no one can truly see it, no one but him. He’s not even sure if _God_ cares enough to see Her best and most steadfast angel, and She was who made him the way he was, poured the stubbornness into his essence and hemmed love and protection and adoration into each feather.

Well, bollocks to Her, then. Six thousand years and not even a phone call? _He_ gets calls from Satan. (Or, well, he _did_.) That’s abandonment right there, and in the words of the Not-Anti-Christ, that’s _no parent._

“A _good_ bastard,” he elaborates. “Not like… not like, like, uh—”

“Michael, bit of a tosser,” Aziraphale sniffs into his wine glass, then chuckles. He rolls his shoulders and smirks as he sinks into the act. “ _I need a bath towel._ Maybe it’s a little wicked, but, goodness! I hope to never forget that face.”

He melts; it feels like melting, this feeling. Hotter than driving through the ring of fire that was the M25, hotter than the blazing burn of the ring of hellfire, as bright and searing as the white pylons of Heaven; perhaps, then, this would be what it was like to die in holy water. Hot and aching and liquid in his gut.

As Aziraphale laughs, positing the question of the _electronic bay_ and novelty rubber ducks to commemorate the occasion, Crowley raises his bottle of scotch to his lips, grinning around the rim.

“Angel, you really are the best of them, aren’t you?” he murmurs.

“What’s that?” Aziraphale asks, licking his lips absently. His face is flushed, slack and wide-eyed, and Crowley feels like he’s fumbled a play he’s practiced a thousand times.

He leans back against the sofa cushions and drapes one arm artfully over the edge. “You really bested them, didn’t you?” he says, and tries not to take it back the second Aziraphale’s brow crumples, lips pursed.

Crowley clears his throat and gestures with his bottle, knowing with absolute certainty that he’s missed a chance, a chance to do something real about the space—or lack of space—between them and what it means.

“I sssuppose,” he drawls, leaning hard on his drunkenness to hide his slip. “I can whip you up a rubber duck.”

And he does.

There are two, and if they bicker about who gets the one with the tartan bow tie, it really means that while everything has changed, they still, at their core, are the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 It’s very wet.[return to text]  
> 2 That would be the splash tetra, _Copella arnoldi_.[return to text]  
> 3 He had been trying to explain the plot of Friends, while Aziraphale was trying to talk over him by doing a (bad) reading of _Pericles, Prince of Tyre_.[return to text]


	2. Under pressure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things are simply ineffable.

They’re going somewhere—Crowley didn’t really listen to where, just that it’s them, the two of them, as always, Aziraphale-and-Crowley, like it hasn’t been two weeks since the Apocalypse That Wasn’t, since he stepped up to Heaven and found the bright lights were just as blinding as they had always been, and yet… he hadn’t been tempted one bit. He simpered and fussed and then snarled while Aziraphale had splashed about and asked for a duck and made a fool out of Michael and…

Well, Adam had put everything back, hadn’t he? Maybe a bit to the left of where it was before, but it was still the same. They’re back to their old game of dancing around each other, only now they’re doing something more akin to a tango.

Because Crowley had missed his chance, yet again. He’d had the perfect opportunity, made the window himself, called Aziraphale the best of the angels (it was true), then backed away like the coward he was.

Aziraphale picks up a CD from the bottom of the stack, squints, and shrugs. “ _Now That’s What I Call Music_?” he reads. “Oh, turn left.”

“That is _not_ mine or one of mine,” Crowley growls, wrenching them around a corner as Aziraphale mutters something about one-hundred volumes. “Brat doesn’t know music.”

“Now now. Antichrist or no, he’s still just a boy. It seems to be a compilation. Let’s see...”

“Eh, it’s been a fortnight. You won’t like it.”

“Well, you don’t know that,” Aziraphale mutters, very obviously pouting. “There was never any indication that it wasn’t _just_ your car, it could very well have been ah… written away. Changed.”

Crowley watches Aziraphale gesture with his hand, an overly showy gesture much like the ones he does when he’s attempting his magic tricks. He snorts. “You haven’t been in enough cars that still use CDs. It’s one of those… things.”

“You mean to say it’s ineffable, then?”

They come across a red light. Crowley barrels through it, the other cars stopping inches away from the sides of the Bently. He makes a noise in the back of his throat as Aziraphale flaps his hand at the windshield and shouts about traffic laws.

“Ah, bless it, put it in and see what happens. You won’t like it either way.”

The first song was supposed to be an earworm responsible for many irritable retail workers—he was quite proud of that one[4] —instead, a familiar bass line began to thud from the speakers.

Freddie Mercury begins to scat.

Crowley slaps the steering wheel victoriously. “Ha! Told you it was a—a universal constant! Like a law!”

“Well, that doesn’t necessarily—you don’t have to, to gloat,” Aziraphale sniffs.

_Under pressure, pushing down on you  
Pushing down on me, no man ask for—_

“Well, that’s…new,” Crowley drawls as Bowie chimes in. “Never did this one before.”

Aziraphale beams, his eyes scrunching as his cheeks rise with his smile. It’s positively smug.

It’s positively gorgeous is what it is, and Crowley jerks suddenly as he finds he’d drifted into the other lane of traffic because he’d taken to looking at Aziraphale instead of the road.

“Laws can be changed,” Aziraphale says as he leans towards the console with a small nod.

“Now, Angel,” he starts, clearing his ever-tightening throat. “It’s, gloating is a sin.”

“I do believe that’s _pride_.”

“So is insufferability.”

Aziraphale laughs. “Well. I must continue on our little charade.”

If Crowley had a heart that beat, he thinks it might just stop right there. What happens instead is an uncomfortable lurching of both his essence and the Bentley as he abruptly skids to a halt at an intersection, obeying traffic laws without duress for once in his life.

_It's the terror of knowing what this world is about_  
_Watching some good friends screaming, "Let me out!"_  
_Pray tomorrow gets me higher_

“Pardon?”

“...Crowley, my dear, you stopped for a stoplight—Are you alright?”

“It was red, you stop for red,” he says, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, suddenly filled with restless energy. His shoulders itch where his wings were just two weeks ago, where those blasted ropes were when he watched Gabriel fray under his own righteousness, where their palms pressed, tight and warm, together.

Charade. Is that what this is, this new normal, the continuation of Aziraphale-and-Crowley. Is he, once again, going too fast?

“...the light is green, now,” Aziraphale murmurs. “I just mean, what I mean is… Well, they think I’m well on my way to Falling, don’t they? So. I might as well have a little… fun. Good-natured teasing, wrapped up in a little pretend sin, just between you and I. The way it always is. Was? Will be.”

_Will be, he says,_ thinks Crowley. The tense makes him euphoric, raises the hairs on the back of his neck, makes him want to continue this whole thing, taking Aziraphale wherever he wants to go, whenever, and at whatever pace the angel so desires, but damn it all. Bless it all, he doesn’t care.

He wants to whip his sunglasses off and survey Aziraphale without barriers, to grasp his hand and knee and the collar of his fussy shirt with the tartan collar—God, Satan, _whoever_!—he wants, wants, wants, in a way that is wrapped up in humanity and his own Fall That Was A Saunter, that is so uniquely tied to Aziraphale alone that it could end him just as well as holy water.

That sad, tired voice, gently pushing him away as he had never before. ‘ _You go too fast for me, Crowley_.’ And it haunts him, in a way that nothing quite ever has aside from the Spanish Inquisition.

_Turned away from it all like a blind man_  
_Sat on a fence but it don't work_  
_Keep coming up with love but it's so slashed and torn_

“ _Okay_!” Crowley says loudly. He’d clap if his hands weren’t clenched so tightly on the wheel that his knuckles were turning white. “We’re going _where_ again?”

_Why, why, why  
Love, love, love, love, love_

“Oh, actually, you’ve just passed it—”

Crowley jerks the wheel and a parallel parking space jumps to meet them. “This is the bloody park,” he complains. “You made a fuss about going to the park? You made me go in circles to get to the _park_?”

“Not just the park, Crowley,” Aziraphale says in that prim way of his, where he enunciates each word so clearly. It rather makes Crowley want to shake him sometimes, because how can someone manage to be so proper and remain entirely endearing? It’s baffling, is what it is.

Aziraphale continues, oblivious as ever. “There’s a food truck fair today!”

“Oh for—” Crowley starts, almost angry. He stops, then tosses his head back and laughs. “Why did you insist on a ride, then?”

He has an idea, and the idea resides in the backs of several Ubers[5]and pointed walks around Soho. The carefully constructed distance he’s started putting back down, brick by brick, to shelter them from the storm of his soul.

Aziraphale is silent, and Freddie sings about love and chances.

Crowley is a bit put off by the absolute timing of it all, by the fact that now cars play any song included on the first volume of the Best of Queen, not just the regional variant[6]; that Adam didn’t end the world and now he has to face how close their dance has really and truly become. That the world isn’t _letting_ him step back this time, that Aziraphale has gotten some wild hair in the wake of the Apoca-Not, and he has to  _deal_ with his feelings instead of ignoring them. 

“Well,” Aziraphale says, his mouth wobbling between a sheepish smile and a small, nervous frown. He toys with the empty CD case, rubbing his thumb against the corner. “You… we haven’t _gone_ anywhere in a week or so, and I knew if I _asked_ … Awful presumptuous of me, I admit. A… a bit prideful, you could even say!”

_Because love's such an old-fashioned word_  
_And love dares you to care for_  
_The people on the edge of the night_

He laughs and turns to Crowley, his head tipped as he smiles and blinks quickly. “I just thought, maybe, you needed a little, a little push! To help with the shock of it all.”

_And love dares you to change our way of_  
_Caring about ourselves_  
_This is our last dance, this is our last dance_

Crowley slaps his hand on his knee, and the speakers crackle as the sound cuts out. “Enough of _that_!” he hisses at the disc reader. He reaches out and plucks the CD case from Aziraphale’s hands and tosses it into the back seat of the Bentley.

Aziraphale gasps, and Crowley can’t bear it, he can’t stand it, it rises and bubbles and roils like the sulfur pools in hell. It’s like he’s walked into some trap, where everything is laid out oh-so-perfectly[7] to finally pour his soul out like molten wax.

“Come on, Angel, food trucks,” he says, voice tight.

“The food can wait,” Aziraphale answers, voice firm. He shifts in his seat to turn his body to face Crowley as best he can. “Tell me what’s bothering you, because I know what you’re like when you’re sulking.”

“I’m not, there isn’t—”

“Is it me? Was I… was I too slow for you?”

His voice is quiet, almost a whisper, and it’s so heavy with longing grief that it resonates within the very particles of Crowley’s exiled soul. If he were who he’s supposed to be, he would be overjoyed— _see, I made an angel sound like that, I corrupted an angel’s very soul to the point they would fall,_ it would croon.

Instead, he’s _him_. He’s Crowley, so wrapped up in being cool and vain and avoidant that he’s come full circle to face his actions head on, and he _hates_ it. He’s hated it since that night in the Bently when he first heard that desperately wistful voice.

“Aziraphale,” he says, shaking his head. “No. Never. So what if you’re slow? It all comes ‘round in the end. It’s your blasted ineffable plan, isn’t it?”

He expects a laugh, a jab at his inability to trust in a greater plan. He expects a return to the usual tentative dance around the coiled spring of their hearts, of the tension building, building, because that’s who they _are_. That’s how the world is, even now, after it’s almost ended.

Instead, Aziraphale gives him a sad smile and leans forward, his eyes dancing across Crowley’s face. He hasn’t felt more _seen_ in millennia.

“You’ve offered to take me to so many places. So many times, you’ve offered, anywhere I wanted. And you know, I have found myself…wanting to, wanting to go. Away, with you,” Aziraphale says softly. He reaches out and cups his palm against Crowley’s cheek. “And…you said it was time to leave the garden. So I… I assumed you would take me.”

Crowley is speechless. He can’t even fake breathing, his physical form frozen. When he whispered to Eve, was this how she felt? Was this the pull he’d inspired, the insistent tug towards something that shouldn’t be touched, shouldn’t be defiled by the likes of him?

Aziraphale meets his eyes even through the darkness of his glasses, and it’s like the eyes of God Themself is taking him apart, piece by piece, weighing his heart and judging it unholy once more. Only, Aziraphale’s mouth quirks higher and his eyes spark with mischievous, tender joy.

He moves forward until their noses brush. “Please, tell me you meant it the way I wanted it to mean,” he breathes.

Crowley’s burning; he’s falling, stripped down once again to the barest bones of himself, plummeting at the speed of light, the sweet, soft brush of lips against his the only thing he can feel. It’s holy water, it’s hell fire, it’s watching Aziraphale eat gelato on a hot day, a CD that plays the right song even after a fortnight, the world restored once again. It’s the pressure of gravity, the pressure that makes the core of the earth molten and malleable, and he cracks, crumbles, and falls.

“I… anywhere, yeah, away, uh,” he says, and later, he’ll kick himself for being slow, for not saying something cool or dashing, but now, he’s plummeting to his knees before the only being worth adoration in his life.

And Aziraphale says:

“Then take me out of the garden.”

And so Crowley does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4 He’s quite sick of the song, though. Something about the idea of hearing someone crooning about buying everything they want to the tune of _My Favorite Things_ is… off putting at best.[return to text]  
> 5 He did not think up that one. He did, however, say that he whispered the idea of Uber Pool into existence. As was typical, no one appreciated it.[return to text]  
> 6 Under Pressure, of course, was on the United States’ and Canada’s editions of the Best Of Queen, Volume One.[return to text]  
> 7 It could be argued that this is correct and is part of the Ineffable Plan. Arguing such would get you punched in the teeth.[return to text]


	3. Be that hopeful feeling when Eden was lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If this means failure, if this means falling, if this is what finally damns him, then so be it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Be, by Hozier.

Aziraphale remembers the lush beauty and the soft soil and the smell of the fruit trees in bloom. He’s never forgotten. That place is embedded in his soul and celestial marrow, but it’s an old, old memory. It’s an old ache, and it’s time to leave that yearning behind.

If he is still in Eden, then they are Adam and Eve, the fruit and the tree, the angel and the snake, all at once, together. He’d let them through the gate, out into the word and pressed his sword into Adam’s soft palm; millennia later, he held Adam’s slightly calloused hand in his own, sword briefly returned. But he’d never left that garden, that beautiful place where if he was _good_ , if he did what was expected and what he was told, he’d be forever safe and loved, despite knowing that there was something more. Something more, something that he must not touch, must not covet or love or taste.

Yet, he had already tasted the fruit, once during the Blitz decades ago, the barest graze of nectar upon his soul. He’d tried to turn himself away from it since, but can’t, not when Crowley grins and snickers and is his stubbornly affable self, when he miracles away even the slightest inconveniences for them both. It builds and it builds and it builds, and the _thou shall nots_ build until it’s all he can think about.

Why shouldn’t he? Why couldn’t he?

For righteous men can be evil and good can have terrible, terrible costs. If not for the world, for the humans, for Crowley, perhaps he would have never known this. Without the demon’s persistent penchant for small irritations instead of nihilistic suffering, perhaps Aziraphale’s small, everyday mercies would have shrunk and shrunk until he was as monolithic and cold as Heaven.

He could have ended up like Gabriel and Michael and Uriel and Sandalphon and all the others, celebrating victory whose cost was the death of everything, with no real appreciation for the world humans have made for themselves out of what the Almighty gave them.

Once that knowledge brushed across his soul, he finally placed a name to the feeling blooming within him. He finally knew.

His love opened his eyes and made his soul as naked as the day it was made, and he was ashamed.

He leans forward and cups his hand against Crowley’s cheek.

Unlike Adam and Eve, he knows what succumbing to the temptation means. He knows what lies outside the garden, but he’s done peering through the gate in the wall. He wants to leave that soft place with the strict rules and tied back hands—he’s been tempted far too many times to stay.

He tastes the forbidden fruit, and it is sweet.

The distance between them is infinitesimal, the space between electrons in an atom, yet it felt like the distance between the edges of the universe. He feels the rough stubble on Crowley’s cheek, the curve of his bones, the taut flesh pulled over them, the shift of muscles and tendons as Crowley clenches his jaw and swallows in that briefest millisecond before Crowley leans into him.

Their mouths brush almost clumsily, noses pressing together and Crowley’s sunglasses bumping against his brow. Crowley makes a gesture and they’re gone, and their foreheads touch as Crowley sighs, a sound that’s almost heart wrenching in its sweetness. They fit together, nose-to-nose, mouth-to-mouth and it is sweet and wonderful and electric.

Now that they are kissing, Aziraphale knows he cannot, will not, stop. He won’t stop even if it burns away everything holy in him. He cannot stop at one taste, one bite. Crowley’s near trembling, his muscles stiff and cautious as he reaches up, his knuckles trailing against Aziraphale’s jaw.

“Yes, my dear,” Aziraphale whispers against Crowley’s lips, shifting a bit in his seat. He slides his palm down Crowley’s neck, across the flat of his chest, and lets it fall to his knee. He squeezes just so, thumb rubbing a slow circle.

“Aziraphale, angel, you,” Crowley says[8], eyes wide and unblinking.

“Yes,” Aziraphale repeats. He leans back in and kisses Crowley slowly, making a soft murmuring noise in the back of his throat when Crowley’s mouth opens up against his own.

He presses down on Crowley’s knee, angling himself as Crowley’s hand rises to the back of his neck, and oh, the feeling of their mouths, slick, together is more divine than any fine wine or gourmet meal or the harmonies of the seraphim. It _is_ the holy choir; this is an act of worship, and worship he will.

If this means failure, if this means falling, if this is what finally damns him, then so be it.

He will walk, head high, far from Eden, far from Heaven, just as long as this damnable, wonderful being is with him. He will run far from the supposed fields of grace and mercy just to have Crowley’s fingers in his hair, that mouth on his own, and that awful, wonderful, terrible grin directed at him always.

For six thousand years and against all odds, Crowley has been the most steadfast, most trustworthy, most present being in his life. At first, he was simply there, a constant thorn in his side, a demon in need of thwarting, but at some point he found himself looking forward to their constant clashing.

Here, his mind said, is someone who knows what I do. Someone who appreciates it for what it is, no matter how small. Someone who questions themselves, here is someone, someone, someone who is there, who will listen, who will help.

His best friend, his companion, his confidante, his menace, his beloved.

Crowley’s hand tightens in his hair and pulls him closer. Aziraphale slides his hand up Crowley’s thigh, enjoying the noise the shift pulls up from Crowley’s throat.

Enjoys, delights, luxuriates in it, in the wiry muscle and rough jeans; in the slow rhythm they’ve made between them, a push-pull tide of their mouths and tongues and breath.

“Angel, please,” Crowley finally murmurs, pressing his forehead to Aziraphale’s. His eyes are wide, golden, pupils swollen to pitch ovals. “Have a bit of…”

He trails off, and Aziraphale laughs once, laying his hand over Crowley’s chest, where his heart would rest if they were truly as human as they feel. And oh, how human he feels in this moment.

“Mercy?” he asks.

“I, well, uh, I…”

Aziraphale laughs again and nuzzles his nose against Crowley’s, eyes falling shut with a contented grin as Crowley stammers something that sounds more like a tape rewinding than actual words.

“Crowley, my dear, I am so sorry I’ve made you wait all this time, but I… I needed a push.”

“You needed me to tempt you,” Crowley croaks. “That’s…”

“No, absolutely not,” Aziraphale says firmly, drawing back. He puts his fingers beneath Crowley’s chin, forcing their gazes to meet. “No, I needed to realize how blastedly wrong I was, how stupid I… I’ve been foolish, Crowley, for I thought… I quite thought I’d—I thought Heaven would forgive.”

His voice cracks and wavers, and he’s ashamed, he’s so ashamed of himself. He has tasted the fruit, he has left the garden, and now he knows and he is ashamed of what he’s done in his quest to be right and holy.

“You were right, and we.. we could have had so much time.”

Crowley’s face softens to an expression that Aziraphale knows is rare and to be cherished. It’s the look of adulation that is only ever caught in renaissance paintings, carefully rendered on angels looking upon God. He’s seen it only once or twice, for Crowley shows his regard in his service, so Aziraphale tucks it deep inside his heart to have and to hold, forever.

“We have the rest of our lives,” Crowley says. “That’s not nothing. Also, if you can, can you repeat that part about me being right, I need to record it, for-for history.”

Aziraphale laughs and gently touches his fingers to Crowley’s cheek, tracing the shape of it. He knows its shape by sight, and now devotes himself to learning it by touch. “Absolutely not, you fiend.”

Crowley turns his head and kisses Aziraphale’s palm, and Aziraphale is reminded of the courts of long ago. Such an old gesture, and the sheer devotion behind it burns him, strikes a match in the places deep within himself that were growing dry and bitter and burns them away into something soft and tender.

“Now,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale waits, hanging onto the way he draws the word out into the air. “Is there really a food truck fair, or was this all an elaborate scheme?”

“I,” Aziraphale says as primly as possible, “would never lie to you about food.”[9]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 8 Or, those would be the words he’d say if he’d managed to commit to anything other than the first few letters.[return to text]  
> 9 He would. Especially if it was the last of something.[return to text]


	4. Seconds, minutes, hours, lifetimes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If Satan had any hand in creation back then, then it would have been swans. God just went, _‘Oh dear Me, these aren’t that good are they’_ , and they’ve had a complex ever since.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the weekend, where I intersperse adulting with my adoration for characters being casually domestic doing just... random things.  
> Title from Lifetimes, by Oh Wonder.

There is, indeed a fair. Food trucks line the walkways, with people darting back and forth with little paper trays and drinks. Children dart and weave amongst the crowd with bobbing little balloons, shrieking with delight as they take sample after sample.

“You know,” Crowley says, watching as Aziraphale nibbles a piece of sugar-dusted funnel cake given to him by a bored looking teenager with a platter full of them. “I wouldn’t have pinned this sort of setup as your thing.”

Aziraphale laughs and rubs his fingers together to rid them of powdered sugar. “Well, they’re all the rage amongst the humans,” he says sagely, and peers at a truck selling cones of fried noodles. “I also do believe I said that we could have a picnic one day, and I rather thought you’d enjoy this more. I’d like to do this _right_.”

“Ah.”

Aziraphale laughs, reading the quiet noise as what it is. “I’m glad I got it, then,” he says.

“So you were planning on seducing me, then?” Crowley muses.

“No! Goodness, no! I… That all just, well, do you really think it would have _worked_ if I’d planned it?” Aziraphale implores, chuckling softly.

“Point taken,” Crowley says, tucking his hands into his pockets. “So. Uh. What, uh. What now?”

“We go find something to eat, grab a nice bench, and there’s some sort of even with chili peppers that are, and I quote, hotter than hell itself. Quite thought you’d find it amusing.”

“You do realize that those cause humans actual pain to eat,”[10] Crowley offers, nudging Aziraphale with his shoulder. “Right?”

“Mm? Well. It’s for _charity_ , so I suppose it cancels out.”

“Didn’t you just spend the last, oh, handful of centuries arguing that that’s not how it works?” Crowley accuses, eyebrow quirked.

“I also spent those centuries thinking Gabriel actually had a brain, so how about we mark that one down as a moot point?”

Crowley laughs and shakes his head. “Horrible, you are.”

“Mildly so, it seems.” Aziraphale pauses and studies a menu thoughtfully. “Doesn’t seem to bother you much.”

“Demon, remember?”

“I don’t think so,” Aziraphale says, drawing his wallet from his waistcoat.

“Ah, I’ll get it,” Crowley offers. “And what’d’you mean, _don’t think so_?”

Aziraphale steps up to the window and orders some sort of chips cone that sounds obscenely fancy for finger food—something involving duck fat and truffles and some sort of cheese. He then turns to Crowley. “Drink?”

“I’ll pass,” Crowley says.

By unspoken agreement, they pause their conversation until all is paid for and they’re back to strolling through the park.

“What I mean is,” Aziraphale says, “We’re not properly anything anymore, not after all of… whatever happened when the world was supposed to end.”

“Mm, I suppose.”

Aziraphale watches as Crowley’s head turns towards a truck styled after a caravan, one of the campy cartoonish ones that would be quaint if not for the horrible cultural appropriation behind the design. There’s a banner that proclaims they’re selling organic fruit smoothies and juices.

“Juice cleanses, I claimed those,” Crowley muses. “Matcha pineapple? What the, hold on.”

Aziraphale chuckles and waves him on. Once Crowley returns with his smoothie, they continue on.

“Did you ever actually do anything that you said you did?” Aziraphale asks mildly. “Because I would have thought cleanses were one of Famine’s gigs.”[11]

“I definitely, one-hundred percent did the M25,” Crowley mutters, poking at a chunk of pineapple with his straw. “Fat lot of help that was.”

They fall into silence as they stroll, and for anyone but them, it would be awkward. But they have practice in silence and patience, and they simply make their way around the park, jostling elbows and shoulders in companionable silence.

Aziraphale wants to talk about what happened between them in the Bentley, wants to talk about the weight of it being lifted, of the way it felt to kiss Crowley, finally, and what it means. He wants to reach out and slip his hand into the crook of Crowley’s elbow, to sing psalms about the peace and joy this disreputable fool has brought into his life.

But now is not the time, now is the time to settle into something new, test its form and mettle and just be. They have time, now.

They round a particularly congested bend and Crowley makes a noise in the back of his throat.

“Are you quite alright?” Aziraphale asks, reaching out to thump him on the back.

“The despair radiating off of that pavillion is _ridiculous_.”

“Oh?”

“I haven’t felt anything this ridiculously stupid in… well, since the last time I visited America.”

“Ah, that would be the charity event then. Wait… Didn’t you start a war?” Aziraphale asks.

“Uh… no?”

“You don’t sound sure.”

Crowley shrugs. “I don’t recall starting a war. I just put it in peoples minds to do what they wanted, it’s out of my hands after that, really. Went off to sleep a bit afterwards.”

Aziraphale gives Crowley a look. “Went to sleep, did you?”

“Oh, look, ducks!”

“ _Crowley!_ ”

Crowley laughs at Aziraphale’s outburst, shaking his head a bit. “Oh, angel, come on, I’m having a bit of fun.”

“At my expense?” Aziraphale asks.

“Never,” Crowley says with a crooked grin. Aziraphale is quite certain he winked as he said it.

He returns the smile and chuckles, looking briefly down at his food before catching the way the sharpness of Crowley’s grin melts into something softer, a little smaller, but infinitely more warm.

“Are you flirting, Crowley?”

Crowley snorts. “Always. Took you to the end of the world, huh?”

A group of teens miraculously vacate the bench they’ve been loitering on, tweeting out the various miseries self-inflicted upon those who doubt the hell of specialized breeding in peppers.

Crowley still slouches and keeps his knees spread wide, arm over the back of the bench as Aziraphale sits straight, posture near perfect. But as they settle in, side to side, their knees knock, thighs press together; Crowley’s fingers brush Aziraphale’s back lightly, tapping a rhythm born of nervous affection against the material of his overcoat. Centuries of distance, a person’s width between them, closed.

“I’ve known for decades,” Aziraphale says after a moment, rubbing his fingers together to brush off the oil and crumbs from them. “I just. Well.”

“Yeah,” Crowley says, taking a drink from his smoothie.

“I don’t know if you realize this, but I do tend to dither about.”

“You fuss, yes. It’s infuriatingly charming.”

Aziraphale chuckles and continues to eat. They watch as a broad man with tattoos rushing towards a trashcan to spit out a mouthful of… something with the vague discomfort of someone witnessing a trainwreck.

“What charity is this for, again?” Crowley asks, making a face. “Moronity anonymous?”

“Something with children with cancer, some teenagers organized it,” Aziraphale answers, paused mid-chip. “Oh dear, that can’t be good for the ducks.”

“Eh, they’ll be okay, just as long as the swans don’t eat any of that.”

“Why swans in particular?”

Crowley sets his smoothie between his legs and reaches over to steal a chip, ignoring Aziraphale’s indignant _excuse you!._ He watches as the ducks swarm to the bread and half of a disturbingly red pepper that a girl had thrown in a panic as her face went white, then bright red.

“Well, ‘cause,” he says, gesturing with his half-eaten chip. “If Satan had any hand in creation back then, then it would have been swans. God just went, _‘Oh dear Me, these aren’t that good are they’_ , and they’ve had a complex ever since.”

“I thought that was geese,” Aziraphale mused. “Did that kid just eat five?”

“...wow. For the record, I did not do that. That is _not_ my fault.”

“No, I think we’ve quite proven that humans are… full of surprises.”

“Yeah,” Crowley agrees, sounded slightly disgusted as he steals another chip. Aziraphale tuts at him, but Crowley simply puts his fingers against Aziraphale’s neck, thumb running circles at the nape, and all is forgiven.

If they kiss as the chaos continues, no one notices. No one notices when the ghost peppers are replaced with Carolina Reapers, and similarly, no one notices when the milk never goes to room temperature or that any lingering gastrointestinal distress is eased. But it’s the small things that are worth doing, and are worth doing well, like shared chips and perpetually frosty smoothies and hands on knees, and kisses that are more smiles than actual kisses.

The only people who ever notice are the people who spend their lives doing it.[12]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10 And yet, they do it anyway. All those years of creating the perfect safeguard against predators, and humans decided everything red was edible.[return to text]  
> 11 They were not, because they had actual food contents. It was more of a War thing, because have you ever met someone who’d consumed nothing but juice for four days? [return to text]  
> 12 And, of course, God. [return to text]


	5. When he comes a-knocking at my door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  `See, my birds of a kind, they more and more are looking like`   
>  `Centurions than any little messiah`   
>  `And as I prune my feathers like leaves from a vine  
> `I find that we have fewer and fewer in kind  
> ``

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title/summary from Passerine by The Oh Hellos.

And the world turns on:

Aziraphale continues to refuse to sell books and Crowley continues to skulk about London, causing minor mayhem and irritation in his wake. 

Only there’s something a little different. Perhaps when the world had been put back together after the ApocaNope, the pulled taut strings of their yearning had finally snapped and Adam had smoothed the frayed edges out and braided them together as a favor, giving them the courage to become something new entirely. 

There are plants in the bookshop. 

There are books in Crowley’s flat. 

There are two mugs[13]; two beds with inexplicably soft silk sheets, one in dark reds and the other in sky blues; a very small, modern wireless[14] in the back room to watch films on—though never _The Sound of Music_ ; a lounger in his study; reusable totes from the grocery that would make the youngsters and occultists in Lower Tadfield quite pleased to see used; actual pots and pans and old recipe books retrieved from antique dealers. 

Six months of settling in, stretching out, molding and testing edges, fingers probing into nooks and crannies as they bleed, slowly, to the ways they’ve always wanted to intertwine their beings. Perhaps they’re not quite completely at peace, but they’re close to it. 

But then, something strange happens. Not between them, no, but _around_ them: 

Pages rustling in the bookshop in the late hours of the night when Aziraphale wanders down to reheat his cocoa, but no windows were left open. Something glittering in the edge of his vision, but when he turns, nothing. The vibration of disturbed electrons that make the _ting_ of a miracle. 

He doesn’t mention it to Crowley, because he’s always alone when it happens. Stress, he tells himself. Late onset shock from what happened, from descending into Hell for a bath and a fluffy towel to save Crowley, from the Apoca-please-don’t, from the dry-ash taste of knowing that he’d been expected to just… walk into the circle drawn up for his own execution. 

There’s no sense in bringing it up, especially when Crowley is so convinced that they’ll be left alone for a while. 

So he keeps his mouth shut and enjoys their new peaceful routine of staying in and running off Aziraphale’s customers together so they can pour brandy into their cups at tea time and contemplate dinner. 

One night, while they’re both drunk on expensive cocktails from some new hip fusion eatery that opened a few blocks from the bookshop, talking[15]about the history of adapting cultural foods to local palates, the peace is abruptly shattered. 

Aziraphale stops dead in his tracks, face going paper-white underneath the flush of alcohol on his cheeks. Crowley continues to ramble on about human ingenuity for a good ten seconds before he realizes Aziraphale isn’t following him. 

He turns, face scrunching into a tight purse. “Hey.” 

Aziraphale shakes his head slightly and presses his knuckles to his lips, then points towards the corner. “I… hold on,” he says, voice faint. 

Crowley’s not sure he’s ever seen Aziraphale _run_. In fact, he’s pretty sure no one ever will, and the pace that Aziraphale shoots off towards the corner isn’t quite _human_ enough to be considered a run. But he’s drunk so his brain goes _the fuck_ and registers it as Aziraphale running anyway. 

“Zira, what the bloody hell?” he calls, and if people are staring, he doesn’t care. He jogs up towards the corner where Aziraphale is staring, brows furrowed and lips pursed at the sky. 

“I… look,” he says. He points to a puddle on the sidewalk, a pool of glittering light in the dingy cracks of the concrete, and it shimmers. Then he points upwards, where a sign sways in a nonexistent breeze. 

The shimmering swirl of galaxies in the puddle ebb, and it turns gray and grungy. Distantly, Crowley realizes he should be concerned, that these things _mean_ something, but he’s still rather drunk and his mind still lingers on the idea they’d had involving lots of cushions and another round of alcohol at the bookshop. 

He doesn’t think they’ll be doing that. 

Aziraphale swallows and licks his lips. “I… I think I saw… I think I saw Michael.”

“Well, that’s not good.”

“Obviously not,” Aziraphale says testily. He’s sobered up sometime between bolting and now, and he shakes Crowley’s shoulder. “Sober up, dear.”

Crowley winces and hisses between his teeth as he concentrates on ridding himself of several rounds of fruity drinks with rum and tequila and fancy syrups. 

He blinks. 

“Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 13 There were always two mugs, of course, but one was prone to getting dusty, for tea time always meant wine glasses. [return to text]
> 
> 14 Literally. Crowley forgot the plugs and Aziraphale didn’t realize normal TVs don’t have every channel on the planet (and some extras).[return to text]
> 
> 15 They were actually bickering like children as they’re often wont to do.[return to text]


	6. Your questions like directions to the truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from If We Were Vampires by Jason Isbell (thank you to Jess for the suggestion and for _breaking my heart with it_ and the faith that I would eventually write something with these two).  
> The biblical quotes are:  
> Isaiah 41:10, Ruth 1:16-22

Aziraphale has been pacing for an hour straight. Crowley has been fidgeting for at least forty-five minutes of it. 

“Angel, please, maybe it’s…” 

“I will personally lovingly stroke every plant in your flat if you dare say _coincidence_ , Crowley.” 

Crowley makes a noise, then shrugs; his hand waves dismissively. “I know you do it regardless. Anyway. You’re sure you saw the biggest wank in the ranks,” he says, holding up a hand when Aziraphale inhales sharply to speak. “That wasn’t a question, angel, we’re debriefing here.” 

“Is that what we’re doing?” 

“...As I was saying,” Crowley drawls. “You’ve been seeing evidence of divine espionage, haven’t told me, and now bloody Michael has let you catch a glimpse of her.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale murmurs, twisting his fingers. “Don’t be mad, I…”

“Oh, Angel, I’m not mad,” Crowley says. 

Aziraphale stops his pacing and frowns at Crowley. “Don’t you dare say disappointed.”

“You can’t disappoint me, oh, don’t argue,” Crowley sighs. He pats the sofa. “Zira, come here.”

Aziraphale shakes his head and resumes his rounds, pacing back and forth. Give him a sword and it’s Eden again, the slow back and forth of a perimeter that needs protecting. A soldier unable to defy the orders he’s been given and _no_ , Crowley is not returning to that. 

He leans forward and grabs Aziraphale’s hand. “Angel,” he wheedles, thumb sweeping against warm flesh. “Zira. Aziraphale.”

“Yes?”

Crowley finds himself smirking at the way Aziraphale’s voice goes soft and breathy. He pushes his thumb into the meat of the angel’s palm, relishing the quiet murmur the action receives. “Knock it off.”

“Oh, I thought you were going to be _nice_.”

“I am _never_ nice, you bastard,” Crowley laughs and tugs on Aziraphale’s hand. Aziraphale takes a step forward between Crowley’s knees. Crowley takes his other hand, looking up and studying Aziraphale’s solemn face. 

“Here’s the thing,” Crowley says. “The fact you saw Michael is deliberate. They’re trying to scare you because you wouldn’t lay down and die for them. It’s all they can think of.”

“It’s working,” Aziraphale says dryly. He cocks his head and lifts his hands. Crowley holds his wrists instead, fingers loosely curled as Aziraphale lifts off his spectacles. 

A minor miracle, and they’re neatly folded on the coffee table. 

“Do not be afraid,” Crowley whispers. 

“ _For I am with you_?” Aziraphale parrots back. His fingers brush against Crowley’s cheeks. 

“I was more thinking tidings of comfort and joy,” Crowley says with a quirked eyebrow and a smirk. There’s a faint _ting_ and the sound of cups settling on tables. “Cocoa.” 

“I don’t know, I…” 

“Dither not,” Crowley says, pitching his voice lower. “For there are marshmallows. Let me tempt you.” 

Aziraphale bites his lip against the smile that threatens to break his solemness, and Crowley tips his head back, curling his finger against Aziraphale’s wrist in a slow _come here_. Aziraphale leans down, then pauses, eyes darting to the side. 

“I… oh, what if they’re watching?” 

“Then give them a show,” Crowley hisses, closing the distance between them. Aziraphale’s mouth is soft, warm against his own, his fingers sliding from his cheek to his hair. 

“It’s not as if they haven’t already seen us,” Aziraphale reasons a few minutes later, as Crowley pulls him down into his lap. 

“Their fault if they see something they don’t like,” Crowley laughs, and then Aziraphale laughs too. 

They laugh until their stomachs ache, cheeks sore and mouths dry, foreheads pressed together as they trail off into idle chuckling between kisses. 

The cocoa, as always, cools and is quite forgotten about. 

If only they could forget about what Aziraphale saw as easily as they forgot about tea and cocoa and cookies in the oven.[16]. 

As the days tick on, Crowley can _see_ Aziraphale thinking about it. He can see him processing, analyzing, worrying. 

The last time Aziraphale had to choose between his nature and the way the world had nurtured him, it took thousands of years. Decades for one revelation, for one mortal indulgence, over and over until it built itself into his very essence, making him the insufferable bastard Crowley loves. 

They don’t have decades. 

The very heart of his essence recoils at this revelation. He knew, deep in the darkest, most desperate parts of himself, that Heaven would never stand for what they did, for what they’ve become. That they would come, and he would have to slip away for a while to spare Aziraphale from their scrutiny, rinse, repeat until they finally took Aziraphale from the world. Because Heaven _takes_ , it takes and takes and takes under the pretense of _giving_. 

He thought they’d have more time. He thought they’d have at least fifty years, a human lifetime where they could act human, be themselves and in love for that briefest blink of an eye. 

He’d never been much of a soldier, even as his brief stint as an angel, but it’s still baked into him just as it is Aziraphale. He would pick up sword and shield and march into Heaven just to keep this, their lazy, languid days of bickering and books and blossoms. 

He sighs as Aziraphale turns sharply at the flash of the headlamps of a passing car flash underneath the curtains. They attempted to make dinner themselves, just for the fun of being domestic and cozy like humans, but the constant twitchiness ruins the mood of it, every inch of warmth doused each time Aziraphale drifts off mid-sentence, words paused by some thread of thought. 

“Aziraphale,” he says, setting down his coffee. 

Aziraphale turns back to Crowley, eyes wide as he blinks. “Yes, my dear?”

“Spit it out.”

“The food? No!”

“No, you idi—I mean. Ugh. You’ve been worrying away at something ever since you saw Michael’s bloody face, and I. Just. Maybe thought. It’d help to. Talk?”

“Oh!” Aziraphale’s face lights up into something delighted and fond and Crowley coughs to hide the way his own face goes soppy when Aziraphale reaches out to touch the back of his hand. “My dear, that’s very… yes. I have been worrying about something.”

Crowley leans back in his chair, turning his hand palm up so Aziraphale can run his finger against the lines in his skin. 

“You see… Michael said something before the whole Armageddon thing went off the rails. I’ve been giving it some thought now, and… it’s, well…”

“Yes?”

“It’s about you,” Aziraphale says, fingers closing around Crowley’s as Crowley starts, his hand jerking back. “No, not _that_ , dearest. I do think I’d give up every book I ever touched just to continue as we’ve been, so don’t. Don’t make that face, Crowley. I’ve had enough of making you look like that.”

Crowley turns his head and crosses a leg over his knee, foot bouncing nervously. “Don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re nattering on about.”

“That’s all right,” Aziraphale answers. “It’s. With all of this… I… with everything, I was wondering if you… Crowley, you were…”

“If you’re asking if we could swap again, of course,” Crowley says firmly. “I’d do it again. For you… and the stupid looks on their faces.”

“Not that! No! They won’t try that again,” Aziraphale says firmly. “This, we may not… That is, Crowley, you…”

Crowley sighs. “Yes?”

“Were you… a _named_ angel?”

Crowley’s glasses slide down his nose as his brows go up, then again as his face scrunches up. He tugs his hand away and waves both in the air. “We all were _named_. Come on, now.”

“Ah, well. I mean, well. I…” Aziraphale inhales and sets his shoulders. “Who _were_ you? Before? Would… you be named, if I knew to look? In scriptures?”

“I’ve always just been _me_ , and that _was_ the problem. But no, angel, and don’t go looking. God didn’t even use my name when I… _No._ ”

Aziraphale watches as Crowley’s fidgeting grows a bit more frantic, knee bouncing and hand waving, his lips twisting into a grimace. It’s such a dear, beloved face that Crowley wears, unable to hide despite those dark, dark lenses. 

“I don’t think there’s. I mean, you’re a little wicked, but you're good, deep inside. I don’t understand _why_ —”

“No! Not _that_ question! Not from _you_ , Angel! Do not ever ask _why_! You’re only here because you—don’t—stop asking questions!” 

The outburst seems to be yanked from him, like a bullet from a gun as Crowley shoots to his feet, hands slamming down on the table. The chair falls back with a scrape and a clatter and Aziraphale can see him trembling with anger. 

There’s a long moment where they just look at each other, and then Crowley’s shoulders slump. He straightens up and turns away. 

He stuffs his hands into his pockets and paces angrily back and forth, teeth clenched tightly. 

Aziraphale reaches a hand out even though Crowley can’t see him, even though he can’t reach him over the table. “Crowley, I… I’m sorry I’ve offended you. I’m, truly, I am, I was thoughtless—”

“Six thousand years! You’ve never cared before! I told you, I told you before!”

“I… wanted to… things have changed, Crowley. It’s. It’s time I stopped pretending you and I, we’re cut from the same cloth, and it’s… I felt I must ask.” 

“Will it make any difference at all?” Crowley throws his arms out wide, spinning in a circle. “Will knowing change any of this? Any of what’s happened? Will it change your mind about what _we’re_ doing?” 

“No. It won’t. Not for you and I; not for us, together. No,” Aziraphale says slowly. “But, for me? I… I should know. Considering. I think they… Crowley, they… Crowley, please,” he whispers, hands outstretched. “Please don’t make me say it, don’t, because for all I’ve ever questioned, I’m still, I take pride in what I am, I still love God, but I’m afraid that isn’t enough anymore.” 

“No, no, no,” Crowley hisses, striding forward, grabbing Aziraphale by the lapel. He shakes him, slightly, to keep himself from shaking. “No. No. I will drag your ass right back up there and shove Gabriel and Michael’s wings down their throats until they have to take you back. I will fight _God Herself_ , if She _dares._ ”

Aziraphale reaches up and cups Crowley’s face in his palm. “Oh my dear,” he says, sorrow so heavy in his voice it makes Crowley’s knees go weak. “I know you would, and it breaks my heart.” 

Crowley realizes that he’s let too much out in his outburst, given too much away, and the depth of the terror of being known so completely that it makes Aziraphale sound like _that?_ Well, it almost breaks him. 

He hates this tone—the way it slides up under his skin, the sharpness of the blade it wields. Aziraphale needs no burning sword, no heavenly accouterment or divine will to make him turn away, to flay him alive. That tone alone, and he bows, he breaks—that grief-stricken voice, so disappointed, should sound instead of the horns on judgement day, when it finally comes, and all of Hell would be wise to bend a knee then. 

He’s heard it once, once and only then, in the front seat of the Bentley, neon lights outlining Aziraphale’s features into a stark impressionist portrait of heartbreak as he cradled a tartan-patterned thermos in his lap. He’s never once wanted to make Aziraphale feel like that, never once wanted to stain his soul with sorrow and grief and longing. 

He’s never wanted to break Aziraphale’s love or heart or joy in things. 

“No,” Crowley repeats. He turns his face to Aziraphale’s palm, holds it to his face, his fingers pressing hard against the angel’s knuckles. “I meant it, you didn’t hear me then, but I meant it: Aziraphale, you are the best of them all.” 

Aziraphale jolts, and almost draws back but Crowley holds his hand tight. 

“No, no,” the angel whispers into his palm. 

It’s hot and moist with his breath but Crowley doesn’t care, he only cares about this one point of contact between them, a desperate grasping thing that was six thousand years in the making, and he won’t undo it just for that. He won’t undo the vision he saw in the Garden, of an Angel so able to dart and weave around the stark rules of Heaven that he has _free will_ , and hasn’t been punished. Who dares to question God, yet is still so firm in the goodness of the Ineffable Plan. 

Aziraphale has been the only angel he has ever once respected, and he will follow him anywhere. 

“I, you must be mistaken,” Aziraphale laughs shakily. “I’m… I think we proved well enough that I never was good at being an angel, not one bit.” 

“When humans think of angels, I think they think of _you,_ ” Crowley says. “When I think of Heaven, I don’t think of that white space, or even God anymore. I think of you. Here. On earth, doing your stupid magic tricks to make some idiot toddler laugh after you’ve picked them up off the ground. You’re a fool, and so are they.” 

He lets Aziraphale’s hand fall, their fingers slipping through and past each other like water. He steps back and crosses his arms, face uncomfortably warm. “At least. That’s. That’s what I think.”

Aziraphale gapes, unable to speak. Crowley’s words roar in his entire soul like an oncoming storm. He knew, of course, that Crowley held him in the highest of regards, loves him, would worship him if he could— and in turn, so would Aziraphale, but to hear it so plainly spoken shakes him to his very core. 

Crowley shakes his head, turns, and stalks away from the dinner table towards the study. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale calls. He stands and rushes after Crowley, catching his wrist in the hallway. “Crowley. I’m, I… Crowley, _please_. I’m not, you, what you said, I-I’ve never—”

“What do you want from me, angel?” 

Crowley doesn’t turn, doesn’t look at him, but his shoulders slump inwards and his voice is rough. He’s always let Crowley walk away before—that, or he’s been the one to walk away—and frankly, he’s done with it. He knows there’ll be squabbling and fighting, because that’s just who they are, but he’s not going to let it mean years of silence like it had before. He’s not going to let it implode into Crowley screaming at him in the middle of the street, begging him for forgiveness, _just get in angel, just come on_. 

Aziraphale swallows hard, words pushing up and jumping on his tongue: Everything, all of you, your grace and forgiveness, the softest and hardest parts of yourself; you, who balked at the flood and gave Jesus of Galilee all the kingdoms of the world; you, who tempted Eve and who fell from God, with your terrible temper and your garden and trembling hands. 

He can’t, he can’t ask, not now, not with Crowley a mess like he is, tetchy and flighty. He loves him too much, because he can’t bear the absence of him if he were to go off on a sulk. 

“Come, sit with me,” he whispers. “No, no food or talking, just… sit with me.”

“Okay,” Crowley says. 

Aziraphale smiles and slides beside Crowley, lifting his hand and patting it gently. He leads him into the study to the threadbare sofa they’d spruced up now they both lounged around on it, and settles into the corner. He pats the space beside him and curls his legs up into the cushions. 

The expression on Crowley’s face is complicated, fond and exasperated. “Can’t you at least take off that coat?” 

“Only if you return the favor,” Aziraphale says. He taps the bridge of his nose and Crowley sighs. 

“Alright, okay, you win,” he grumbles, folding himself onto the sofa, all angles and knees and elbows as he arranges himself just so. Sometime during the physical origami show that is Crowley, his glasses disappear from his face, as well as his blazer. Aziraphale snaps his fingers and his overcoat and waistcoat vanish as well, neatly hung up in his bedroom above the bookshop. 

Crowley slings his feet over the edge of the sofa, back pressed up to Aziraphale’s side, arms crossed. Aziraphale nudges him a bit to arrange himself so Crowley isn’t sitting on his ankles, arm over the edge of the sofa as he picks up a book and lays it on his lap, turning the pages with one hand as Crowley sulks.

He’s a chapter in when Crowley slowly starts to relax against him, anxiety draining from his limbs as slowly as a thawing creek in spring. Aziraphale lets his arm slide from the back of the sofa to Crowley’s shoulder, fingers brushing against his bicep. 

Crowley huffs, but leans further against Aziraphale. It dislodges his book, but Aziraphale simply readjusts it with a small hum and a tip of his head, cheek resting on Crowley’s head. 

Another chapter, and Crowley shifts, sliding down. Aziraphale lifts his book without question and sets it onto the arm of the sofa as Crowley looks up at him from his lap. 

“Am I forgiven, then?” Aziraphale asks lightly. He lays his hand on Crowley’s sternum, patting him gently. 

“Wasn’t mad _at_ you,” Crowley mutters.

“I see,” Aziraphale says mildly, fingers toying with the hem of Crowley’s half-unbuttoned shirt. He runs his thumb against a button, tapping it thoughtfully. “You were angry, though.” 

“Mad at myself. A special talent of mine,” Crowley says shortly. His jaw clenches and he closes his eyes, a harsh sigh leaving his nose. “I, I shouldn’t have let you, I… if it would make you leave, I would say anything at all, and it’s... I shouldn’t care about you the way I do, I shouldn’t… I’ve always known that if they catch us at it, they’d kick you out. Even more now. I just… didn’t think it’d be so soon. I… I’ll have to leave you, so you’ll be safe.” 

“I will survive whatever comes,” Aziraphale says serenely, tracing the line of Crowley’s neck up to his jaw. “Whatever they do, however they want to punish me, I will survive it. With you here.” 

“Don’t,” Crowley snaps. “Don’t make promises like that. This is on me, angel, whatever they do to me, it’s on me, because I could have stopped you. I should have stopped you. Continued to play the fool and been happy with just being your friend, because they hate you and it’s my fault.” 

“I chose on my own,” Aziraphale scolds. “I earned their scorn on my own. I earned it. I have always been…” 

Crowley shakes his head, teeth grinding together. “You don’t get it,” he manages, voice strangled. “You don’t _know_. How can you not _know_ , angel?” 

“Tell me, then.” 

“If you don’t know, I won’t say,” Crowley huffs. “You’re a clever little shit, Zira, you figure it out on your own, this time. I won’t be here to help you figure it out.” 

Aziraphale slips his fingers through Crowley’s hair, turning it against his fingers. He brushes his thumb against Crowley’s temple, a soft kiss of a touch. 

“‘ _Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God’,_ ” he whispers. 

“I think you just blasphemed,” Crowley offers. 

“Not really,” Aziraphale answers. “You still acknowledge that God is the Almighty.”

“Maybe,” Crowley answers. “But… You...”

He reaches up and touches Aziraphale’s jaw, then curls his fingers into Aziraphale’s collar and tugs. He rises as Aziraphale leans down, their mouths brushing. The kiss is soft, open-mouthed, and lingering, with Crowley dragging Aziraphale’s bottom lip between his teeth as he slips away. 

Aziraphale knows what he’s trying to say. “For me, too, my dearest. You have made an awful lot of entreatments, and I… rather think it’s my turn.”

“I’m, this isn’t the same,” Crowley protests. Aziraphale presses a finger to his lips. 

“You were trying so hard, my darling, to tell me without words that it was a scream, and I’m so sorry I turned away before,” Aziraphale says, cupping Crowley’s cheek in his hand. “I won’t now, so don’t… please don’t leave for my well being. Don’t ask me to leave you. I’m entreating you not to leave, you insufferable fool.” 

Crowley rolls, pressing his face into Aziraphale’s stomach, one arm winding about his waist. “Zira, you’re an arse,” he says into Aziraphale’s shirt. “I don’t even like you all that much.” 

“Mm-hmm.” 

“I loathe you,” Crowley says, fingers curling tight into Aziraphale’s slacks. “Your, your face is stupid and your taste in tartan is horrific.” 

Aziraphale laughs, resuming his slow petting of Crowley’s hair. “I think only one of those statements is true for you.” 

Crowley is quiet for a long moment, shoulders taut and shaking. “It’s the one where you’re an arse,” he says, before falling silent once again. 

Aziraphale devotes himself to tracing the line of Crowley’s hair where it’s so carefully kept cropped, rubbing his thumb against the prickly softness at the nape of his neck. Crowley’s entire body screams at him, radiates some deep confession waiting to explode. 

So he waits, once more, for Crowley to slowly take down the walls he’s built over centuries. They have the time, even Crowley doesn’t think so. 

He once again retrieves his book from the end table and props it against the arm of the sofa, shifting even as Crowley keeps his arm firmly around his waist, his head stubbornly pressed to his stomach. Aziraphale settles in, knowing that Crowley can keep up a sulk for at least a fortnight—though, judging by the boa-constrictor act, he gives Crowley maybe two hours before he folds. 

Patience is, after all, a virtue[17].

He’s barely even finished the book before Crowley makes a very rough, strangled noise. Aziraphale nearly drops his book, realizing the sound was a sob. 

“Crowley?” he stammers, one hand dropping to Crowley’s shoulder while the other tries to turn his cheek up to face him. “What?” 

“I—I thought you were dead,” he says, voice hoarse. “Gone. Forever. It was awful, I, I couldn’t sense _anything_ from you, and… I wanted the world to end. Fuck everything else, because you were _gone_ , Aziraphale. I never… I would rather, I’d rather you leave me forever, I’d rather go fuck off to Alpha Centauri without you, than… than feel that emptiness in the world ever again.” 

There’s more to be said, Aziraphale knows, so he simply brushes away the growing dampness on Crowley’s cheek. “Dear…”

“I’d rather them put that body through the wringer, take you out and scrub you clean and put you back to singing sonnets than, than have you extinguished. Falling will kill you, even if something within you lives, _you_ will be…”

“I, yes, I will be different, I suppose,” Aziraphale muses. He touches Crowley’s hair, remembering scarlet ringlets in bright sun. “No less worthy of love, or capable of it, though.” 

“Why are you so _sure_ they’re going to cast you out?” 

Aziraphale sighs, watching Crowley’s face and the way the light catches off of his ring and all the things in between. “Crowley, my dear heart, you know now what it’s like… I’ve always been a bit of a disappointment to Head Office, and, I’m afraid…” 

His voice trails off, and he looks away, blinking quickly. “Yes, I am. I’m afraid. This has been a long time coming, you see. They already don’t like me, and now that they’re under the impression I can’t be killed as an angel… well, you do the math.” 

“And this is all the proverbial spear in the side, angel,” Crowley says, grabbing Aziraphale’s hand. “Your love can’t be contained anymore, and it scares them. You, angel, you scare them, because you love this place, you love your food and clothes and books, and…” 

“You.” 

“Uh. Well, yes, that’s, uh,” Crowley stammers, managing to look very smug with himself, and Aziraphale laughs loudly. 

“Oh, you, get up here,” he says. Crowley sits up, and they lean into each other, Aziraphale’s head pillowed on Crowley’s shoulder as they shift and settle into the sofa. 

“Surely... simply loving,” Aziraphale says slowly, letting the words fall hesitantly, thoughtfully. 

Crowley makes a mournful sound, shaking his head as he rests his chin on Aziraphale’s hair. After everything, he’s still so heartbreakingly trusting, so assured in the love and understanding of a god that hasn’t spoken to him since... well, he isn’t sure how long.“Aziraphale… remind me what you said was the reason they crucified that poor chap?” he asks softly. 

Aziraphale’s chest shudders as he chokes on an exhale he doesn’t need. 

“Oh, yes. It was ‘Be kind to one another’,” Crowley quotes, mimicking the careful enunciation and airy vowels. “And you saw what they did to that poor sod. Kindness, mercy, and love, isn’t that what Heaven is about?”

“We… both know the answer to that,” Aziraphale whispers, sitting up straight so he can look Crowley in the eye. His mouth is pursed, trembling, eyes shining as they hold Crowley’s gaze. He leans, pressing their foreheads together, eyes falling shut. 

Crowley tips his head just so and their noses slot together and he just breathes, shakily, through his mouth like he was on the verge of tears. 

“My dear, we know the answer,” Aziraphale repeats, and then sobs, just once, crumbling forward into Crowley’s arms. “You must know what’s coming.” 

He holds onto Aziraphale like he’s the only thing left in the world—and truly, he is. Aziraphale’s arms go tight around his waist, and Crowley shifts, straddling Aziraphale’s hips as he draws his hands up to his face, cupping his jaw as he leans forward against him. 

“I…we can, we can go, we can run, somewhere they’ll never find us, or we can burn it down, or, I can’t fix this, don’t ask me to do something this time—” 

“No, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “We stay. We give them a show, like you said. And then… it will be like taking a nice stroll.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 16 It was a complete accident and took at least three minor miracles and one demonic intervention to fix. [return to text]
> 
> 17 A rather terrifying Virtue, with all that shining chainmail and whatnot.[return to text]


	7. All their words for Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> `And then you put your hand in mine`  
> `And pulled me back from things divine`  
> `Stop looking up for heaven`  
> `Waiting to be buried  
> `

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up, there's been a rating change! Also is it truly writing if I don't jam as much purple prose as I can into one chapter? It is not!  
> Chapter/Summary title is Glory by Bastille  
> Biblical References:  
> Isaiah 40:26, Song of Solomon 2:14, 6:3  
> The Hamlet quote is from Act III, Scene iv, line 89.  
> The wonderful desert dune they defile is based off of the NamibRand Nature Reserve.

It sits heavy between them, a stone around the neck, an albatross around the corner. It broods, unspoken, but always acknowledged. How can they not acknowledge it, when every glancing touch is filled with desperate longing? With the grief of a man going to war, knowing he will die in the front lines?

Instead, they talk about the old times, cataloguing each moment that shines bright in their minds, centuries of memories that coalesce into this one pearl of shining hope between them. Hands clasped, arms linked, thighs pressed together in parks, on benches, in the shop.

There, by the ducks, a quiet murmur: _I never really wanted it for me. Maybe, okay, once or twice. But mostly not._

Here, in the Bentley, a whisper: _I’m still afraid of how much this means to me._

Against shelves: _The books, I realized then, that you loved me, and that I did too._

In the kitchen, peeling apples: _Do you still wonder who got it right, back then?_ And: _Well, perhaps it was both of us. Maybe neither. But the world is wonderful and so are you, my dear._

And then, remembered, punctuated with touches of hands and kisses on cheeks, they return to the moment, and relish it for what it is, a breath of peace and joy. They putter on as humans, fussing and bickering and burning pie[18].

Aziraphale pokes the scorched crust with a knife, face wrinkled up. “Well. That’s a bit of a disappointment.” A pause, then the vibration of atoms. “Ah, there,” he says with satisfaction as the crust goes from black to buttery gold, caramelized sugar bubbling up from the scores in the pastry.

“That’s cheating,” Crowley says, a quiet laugh echoing in his voice. He raises his glass towards Aziraphale, crossing one leg over the other as he leans up against the counter. It’s one of those rare moments where he has his glasses off without prompting, without being roaringly drunk or in crisis, and his gaze is filled with such an overflowing of warmth and amusement that it makes Aziraphale want to unfurl his wings and preen for him.

“It’s not _cheating_ , it’s… helping,” Aziraphale counters, grinning.

“You, you can’t say that when you fussed at me when I had to get those bloody pancakes unstuck to the ceiling,” Crowley splutters, gesturing upwards with his wine. “Said I was being frivolous!”

“I don’t recall doing that,” Aziraphale says archly, giving a minute shake of his head as he tips his chin up.

Crowley splutters on a laugh, then falls quiet. Aziraphale turns, startled at the silence, and then feels himself go soft around the edges, like he’s melting, like the body he’s wearing can’t contain the things he feels. He could slip from his flesh and encompass the entire globe, the entire universe, with this feeling, and still he’d have more. Crowley’s face is relaxed, open, a very secretive smile on his lips, eyes slightly scrunched and pupils slightly ovaled.

“God,” Crowley breathes, face twitching with the buzzing recoil from the word as he speaks, but he feels he must, in this very second. “I love you.”

Aziraphale sets the knife aside and steps forward, hands finding the sharp angles of Crowley’s hips as he tips his chin just so to kiss him. “And I, you, my dear.”

Crowley sets his glass down and lifts his hands to Aziraphale’s shoulders, one hand sliding up to hold the back of his neck as the other curls into the collar of his shirt. The edge of the countertop bites against his back as Aziraphale pushes him back and he laughs, open-mouthed and wanting as he shimmies himself up to sit on the worn wood surface.

There’s been an awful lot of snogging, pushed up against walls, in the Bentley, on the comfortable sofa, and now here, on the counter. As Aziraphale squeezes his knee, Crowley finds himself making a mournful noise, a quiet moan of anguish as he remembers that this could end soon, that this wonderful creature could leave him, and then there will be no one left to know his heart.

“I,” Crowley stammers, holding Aziraphale’s face between his palms. He kisses him several times in quick succession. “Let me, I… I think, I think you need to know, too. I’ll tell you,” he breathes. “But I, you need to, I need you to promise me—”

He flounders, the heart he doesn’t need pounding painfully in his breast as he gives over to being this human vessel of something needy, wanting, vulnerable and so fragile.

 _Promise me your love_ , he wants to beg—but not even God promised that, so how unfair would it be to ask that of his angel?

“I’ll listen patiently,” Aziraphale promises, cupping the small of Crowley’s back with a firm hand. “I won’t interrupt, my love, and if it’s too much, I understand. Don’t force yourself for me.”

Love like a tidal wave enfolds them both: Aziraphale can feel it crash over him. Crowley’s love is something deep and grasping and so painfully pure that he aches to preserve it. Crowley loves like a drowning man gasps, desperate and afraid of death; it’s the love born out of time and the slow bloom of trust, paired with the childlike fear of abandonment that has been branded into his soul by fire. And oh, how he loves Crowley, he loves him so much that it radiates, expands, grows into its own cosmic force; he loves him so much that he can feel it reflecting back at him from the world around them.

Crowley’s hands are in his hair, and his hands are underneath Crowley’s shirt, fingers tracing against the knobs of his spine, and the world spins a little faster around them both, creating a point of gravity between them that causes every GPS system in London to move every route slightly to the left of where it should have gone.

“You’re being very distracting,” Crowley murmurs hoarsely as Aziraphale kisses his sharp jaw, then down the line of his neck. “Angel…”

“I was overcome with temptation,” Aziraphale chuckles, mouth underneath Crowley’s ear. He leans back and presses a quick, chaste kiss against Crowley’s pursed lips, laughing as Crowley makes a face at him. “Yes, yes,” he soothed, stepping back from the counter and the warmth of Crowley’s legs about his.

He holds out his hands and Crowley takes them, hopping off of the counter with a quiet cough to clear his throat. “Right. Well. Mm. Hold onto your bits,” he says, brows furrowing as he clutches Aziraphale’s hands.

Aziraphale feels the universe begin to waver, watches as sweat beads on Crowley’s temple. Power swirls between them, and if Aziraphale closes his eyes, he can see the ghost of Crowley’s wings shining iridescent in the space between the physical realm and the metaphysical place they keep their spiritual odds and ends.

He blinks, and lets those wings pull him into the space between. The universe shifts, scatters, and slides around their atoms, enfolding them into celestial matter, and then they’re standing in the cool of a desert, the night wrapped around them like velvet. But it’s not dark, no—above them is a sight that Aziraphale hasn’t seen since Eden, before the fires of man, before gas and electricity. Above them, the universe swells, bright and beautiful, the bands of their beloved Milky Way so stunning that Aziraphale can imagine that it casts actual shadows across the sand.

“Where are we?”

“Ah, Namibia,” Crowley says, feet shifting in the red sand. “It’s one of the few places where… I’ve never gotten the courage to come, but… I, I keep up with these things, you see.”

“These things? The desert?”

“Nah,” Crowley scoffs. “The skies, places where people remember that there’s more out there than just themselves. ‘Course, if Hell realized these places were around, they’d be crawling over themselves to mess them up. What with it being a whole, _thing_.”

“Lift up your eyes on high and behold?”

“That, yes. Stop parroting scripture, you just had your hand up my shirt.”

Aziraphale laughs. “It was a worshipful hand.”

“I’ll show you worshipful,” Crowley mutters.

Aziraphale touches the small of his back, grinning in the dark. “I’m sure. Now, why did we need to come to Namibia?”

”For the view,” Crowley answers. “Best place for stargazing on the planet.”

Aziraphale turns to Crowley, grinning, but one look at Crowley’s face stops him and his witty retort about romancing.

Crowley’s eyes are closed, face turned upwards like he’s bracing for rain. Aziraphale watches as he opens his eyes, starlight catching his reptilian eyes and turning them burnished gold. It looks like it causes him great pain.

“Beautiful,” he whispers. He looks to Aziraphale and makes a vague noise. “Right well. Let’s get you situated, Angel.”

He steps over and stands behind Aziraphale, hands on his shoulders. “Okay,” he says. “Right. Right. Good. Okay, so. Turn, yeah,” he mumbles, gently nudging Aziraphale to one side. He lifts one hand and points towards the sky, the other rising to touch Aziraphale’s jaw, guiding his head. “Look, uh. Not, not with your human eyes. Use the, use your real ones and… yeah, follow my finger. That star? See it?”

“Yes, it’s the most delightful aqua,” Aziraphale murmurs. Crowley is warm behind him, blazing where the space between realities merges and wakes with the power of using his real sight. His wings ruffle with each slow movement of Crowley’s arm, tiny flutters like heartbeats.

“That one, there,” Crowley says, pointing. “And there. And, squint, far, no farther. That nebula. I was very proud of that one, still am.”

Aziraphale turns his head, cheek brushing against Crowley’s. “You?” he breathes. “You?”

“Helped. I wasn’t, wasn’t old enough then to do it on my own, but. Yeah. Made that one, yeah.”

“You were… My Lord, you…”

Crowley sighs. He leans back on his heels, staring up at the stars he so rarely lets himself admire. “Yes, Aziraphale?”

“You… were… I admit I never gave much thought to, but I thought perhaps… You weren’t some fussy low-sphered angel like, goodness, you… You worked alongside God Herself!”

“I always admired the idea of Principalities,” Crowley muses. “‘Course, those were real new when I Fell. People were just being thought up.”

“Oh hush, you, now isn’t the time for, for… flattery.”

“It’s not idle flattery, angel, it’s a story.”

Aziraphale is quiet, then breathes out a slow sigh. “Oh.”

Crowley steps forward, hands behind his back as he looks up, up, up—has Aziraphale ever seen him look at the sky? After the end of the world, sure, but before? Before there were lamps and light and airplanes and smog, when the air was always so clear?

He doesn’t remember, all he can remember is Crowley, and Crowley’s eyes on him, always.

“You know how it was made,” Crowley says. “Angels, then the universe, so we could expand and spread and _be._ The world and the water, the ground and sky. And it was good. And then, God spread us about, a legion to make the earth, the gardens and the trees and the rivers and lakes. And then, a legion above, to make the stars and moons and all the lovely wonderful things up above.”

Crowley sighs and shoves his hands into his pockets, posture going slack, body sinking into the weight of itself. “Even back then, I was a bit wild. I liked to sing out of tune, as it were. But, I. I… It was fun, making those. They’re still so good. The angels. We were good, too! But. But then came the animals. And man.”

“And I wondered: Why make more? The stars were _good_ , it was _good,_ She said,” he says bitterly. “That was the, the first bit, the first ripple really, for me. I was one of the younger ones; I liked to know why, why do it this way, why can’t I spin gas just like this to make it shine all the colors in the universe, why this way, why not that way? And if I didn’t like the answer from Raphael or Michael, I did it anyway. G… She didn’t mind. She’d always been so amused with me until She made man, you see. And, then…”

He pauses and inhales sharply. He blinks up at the stars and raises his palms up, pleading. “...why were we not enough?”

His voice shudders with his shoulders, cracks and he spreads his hands out, spinning. “She made us! She made the world! Set us out on Earth, to the Universe, and said it was good! But it wasn’t _enough_ , Aziraphale, it was never _enough_! And then She set about making _humans,_ and so we watched as She made new angels to guard and protect her new creations and—we—we were _forgotten_ because of new things.”

“So yeah! Lucifer and the gang got pissed and kicked out over the whole free will and worship shit, and yeah, so what, so what I thought he had a point to have us be _acknowledged_. We were disposable things! All those old angels She made first, all that _power_ , right into the trash! Like they were drafts with spilled ink on them! She just, just tossed them right to the bin! Why? Then She let Adam _name_ all the things, the things we had helped make! Why, why was it not _good enough_?”

He tosses his head back. “And so I asked! I asked questions! I asked questions because I had no fucking faith! Because there was a Plan, but to ask about the Plan was forbidden! Who knew! I wanted to hear Her voice one more time! I dared to ask _why,_ why were we just things to sing hymns to Her, forever! I was angry, I was _hurt_. _We_ were supposed to be Her children, not some idiot pulled up from _dust_ and ribcages. She took my name, the name She hadn’t called me by since the stars were done, and the next thing I knew, I was slithering around watching as She walked along the garden, so _yes_ , I fucked it up, _yes_ , when I was told to go and caused problems I did it, _yes,_ I wanted it! Watching Eve bite into that apple, it was, it was so bright, that one moment. I thought: I made it, no one can forget me now, and it was good!”

He throws his hands out voice wild with grief. “And I _hated it_! I heard God ask, _where are you_? And I heard the grief in the knowledge, and it was like I was being asked as well, and after, Her temper… I knew I was broken, then, not good enough to be in Heaven, but not bad enough for Hell, because I felt _bad_. But not bad enough to repent to Her, no! But it, it set them free. People can truly choose now, and… so I went to the gate, to watch them leave. My one act of repentance.”

Crowley stops his wild movements, hands falling to his sides. “And there _you_ were, Angel,” he says softly, hoarsely. “There you were… and there you’ve always been.”

“Me?”

Crowley shrugs and sits down on the slope of the dune, a black silhouette in the starlight. “Yes, you,” he confirms. “You’ve never… we always seemed to cross paths until I, I expected it. You’re always there, you call my name. Remember debts. Even when we fought.”

He turns away, fingers curling into the sand beneath him, scrubbing it between his fingers. Aziraphale can close his eyes and can imagine the sand trailing out from his hand, sparkling and red, a comet’s tail of celestial dust.

Aziraphale feels the tip of the world’s axis, the spin of it, the slow tides of magma beneath the crust, the slow grind and drift of the tectonic plates. He feels the chasm of the world open up, the point of no return looming before him.

Honestly, he’d been at the precipice for a long time, gingerly toeing his way alongside it, too afraid to take the plunge. But he’d decided he’d rather dive than slip and fall the moment he realized that Heaven expected him to up and die.

If defying Heaven, choosing to stand in Crowley’s place was turning to face the chasm, then all of this —each kiss and idle hand on hips; every finger in hair and mouths; each shared dinner and dozing afternoon; his hands on Crowley’s spine, his body pressed flush to his—all of it was lining his feet up to the edge.

He braces himself, and finds that he doesn’t need to. He steps in front of Crowley and settles into the sand, miracling up a tartan spread underneath them both.

Crowley leans back on his hands, eyes still fixed up at the sky. Aziraphale’s throat tightens and he’s struck with the urge to cry, to beg; it feels like the thermos is in his hands all over again, the stars burning away Crowley as surely as the holy water would have. A sight like this is as powerful as consecrated ground, as the burning bush, as the voice of God on a breeze, and it will take away the harsh edges of Crowley he so loves.

The stars and the heavens shaped him, yes, but they are millions of light years away and he is _right here._

Aziraphale crawls between Crowley’s knees, cupping his upturned face. Crowley turns his head, eyes finally falling closed.

“My dove, show me your face, let me hear your voice,” Aziraphale murmurs.

“ _Please_ stop quoting the Bible at me,” Crowley sighs as he turns towards Aziraphale.

“It irritates you. So I’ll keep doing it.”

“I said _please,_ so do a good one.”

“As?”

Crowley pauses for a moment, “Ah, here’s one for you, angel. ‘Speak no more! Thou turn’st my eyes into my very soul/ And there I see such black and grieved spots/ As will not leave their tinct’.”

Aziraphale smiles despite himself, “I thought you didn’t like the sad ones.”

“I don’t,” Crowley mutters. “But you did. I thought Hamlet was the most moronic of characters, too wrapped up in his own schemes and self-importance to see clearly, and lost everything because of it.”

“Then don’t be him, Crowley,” Aziraphale whispers. “I think you’ll find it quite easy. Besides. I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago.”

“Demon. Unforgivable, it’s, it’s the whole schtick,” Crowley mutters in reply. He shifts, trying to shrug away from Aziraphale’s unwavering touch, fingers crumbling up the blanket beneath them. “Got cast out because I was past forgiveness, for forever. No more stars or bland food or bright white architecture. Haven’t thought this much about it all in thousands of years… it’s all so…”

Aziraphale presses his forehead to Crowley’s and rubs his thumb very slowly across the lines of Crowley’s tattoo, then slips his hand to the back of Crowley’s neck, holding their foreheads together. “Dearest,” he whispers. “Come back to me. Come back down.”

“Down,” Crowley laughs bitterly, breath warm on Aziraphale’s face, and oh, Aziraphale aches. “Why is it always down? You say: ‘Come down to earth, darling’, but what if I’m so far down I’m past earth?”

Aziraphale huffs. He reaches down and slips a hand underneath Crowley’s thigh, drawing it to his hip.

“I’ll come down to you, then. We’ll meet, wherever you are. I’ll bring wine.”

“Persistent,” Crowley mutters. “You are so overwhelmingly stubborn that it’s infuriating.”

“It’s only fair to return the favor,” Aziraphale says. “It’s never bothered you before. Why now?”

Crowley knocks his forehead against Aziraphale’s. “What part of _you_ do you not get? I never, I never, I wanted of course, but never…I thought, hey, maybe we’d live, circling forever and canceling out each other, until the end, but…This has all been a dream. And it’s going to end in the worst way.”

Aziraphale presses Crowley’s leg a bit tighter to his side, studying the dart of Crowley’s eyes, the way his pupils swell to gather light; feels the draw of his brow against his own and feels the tension in his muscles. He reaches and covers Crowley’s hand with his own, lifting it from where it’s curled into sand and fabric.

He miracles away the grit of it and places Crowley’s hand on his jaw. “You wanted? Me?”

“Oh, yeah,” Crowley breathes. “It’s the job description, love. Sins of the flesh and whatnot. Also, most angels aren’t good debate partners, they just smite, so lunch was always a, a desire. One of the hundred chronic ailment sins. Like gout.”

“Hush, you,” Aziraphale admonishes him gently. He holds Crowley’s hand steady, the aching in his chest beginning to swallow his whole being. His mouth is dry, his stomach is burning, and his skin feels hot, pulled tight over his bones.

His toes line up with the drop. His waxwork and paper wings flutter behind him, eyes streaming as the scales lift up off of his lashes. He is Icarus, he is Saul on the road to Damascus. This is the moment before the fall, yet he is to be transformed.

“I never thought I’d get to touch you,” Crowley mumbles. “And now that I have, I… You’re going to… they’re going to… you’ll be ruined.”

“Your love will not ruin me, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “Nor will your questions or insufferably disreputable self ruin my love for you. I adore you, you fool.”

Crowley’s fingers twitch on his jaw, and Aziraphale leans in, gently skimming a kiss across Crowley’s pursed lips.

“Why?”

Crowley’s question is quiet, and Aziraphale closes his eyes, imagining a faceless young angel, far before they were given a form that looked remotely like the bodies they wear now—a shining thing of garnets and bronze, a whisper in the door of the night, the static roar of the universe swelling with the song of _gloria, gloria, in excelsis Deo—_ whispering petulantly like a child, like the modern prayers of millions each morning and night:

_Why, Lord, why?_

Why cannot always be explained—it is ineffable, after all—but Aziraphale knows that _his_ love is not, that his love is as clear as freshly printed words on paper.

He does not fall.

Aziraphale jumps.

“If I fall,” Aziraphale whispers, “Then that is part of the Plan, as painful and horrid as it seems. I was made for it, and it was all for this, here: For you and for the world, for Adam and the bright works of Shakespeare and for the legends of Arthur and for Eve, for her children and her children’s children’s children. For the books and the holy water and the oysters. If I was made to be graceless, then it was to find it in the world’s and in yours. I was made to love, and my love found its way to you. I spent too long turning away from it, but I can’t anymore. I was made to protect, with sword and love and power, and I did not want that life. I chose then, and so I will now.”

And then Crowley’s mouth is upon his own, his hand gripping his hair, and Aziraphale pulls him close, mouth opening against Crowley’s.

Crowley spoke of want, and Aziraphale knows what he meant, because he wants, too. Crowley’s hand in his hair, his mouth on his mouth, tongues in mouths, on necks, body against body, forever, always.

The scales fall away, the wings melt and shower wax and gold from the heat within him. He plummets, his stomach some miles above him, but Crowley is in his arms, in his lap, arms around his neck, and it is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

“And besides,” Aziraphale says lightly once they break away. “I didn’t like the other angels much. Too prudish. Horrible taste in musicals.”

Crowley laughs at Aziraphale’s flippant tone, and he sounds like he’s on the verge of making some sort of retort— they can banter all night if they get going, and Aziraphale decides that he’d much rather do something else. So he pulls Crowley tighter, tighter, and kisses him quiet.

The things Aziraphale wants, he is given, and so he takes them in his hands. Crowley, and his thin, knobbly hands in his hair, on his neck and back and chest, underneath his jaw, shaking as he tenderly undoes the knot of his bow-tie. His mouth on his, open and wanting and slick; tongues together, teeth that nip and drag on flesh.

His own hands, tracing the arc of Crowley’s back, the jut of his ribs, the line of his clavicle. Skin on skin, and the taste of a minor miracle to keep the sand at bay and the blanket in place as he pushes Crowley back, back, down, hands on his knees and shins and the soft pale skin of his thighs.

The salt bitter taste of skin, of sweat. The way Crowley shakes and his own heart swells and trembles to the vibrating string of sweet, searing tension in the air. His body over Crowley’s, covering every inch of him and opening him up like he’s a treat to be devoured.

Crowley gives, gives, gives, and Aziraphale takes, takes, takes, and prays fervently to the god of flesh beneath him that he can give back a fraction of the divine revelation that Crowley is offering him.

When he can bear to be seperate no longer, they join, and it’s the creation of the universe all over. It’s stars and nebulae and water in the vacuum of thirst; heat and light and every delicious thing ever made. Every sonnet, every psalm, everything, Crowley is everything he can feel, and Crowley tosses his head to the side, eyes rolling.

“Please, is this, my love, yes?” Aziraphale pants.

Crowley gasps, barely coherent enough to do more than give himself over to pleasure, to love, to the worship and adoration being showered down on him, every movement between them a bolt of lightning that strikes him numb each time, thunder growing and growing in his ears until he’s deaf to all but Aziraphale, his angel, his best friend.

It’s simultaneously too much and not enough; his body arches and his nails scrabble at the sand, but there’s nothing to hold onto anymore but Aziraphale. Aziraphale is everything, he is the universe and the light and the love, the six days and the rest, all of it and more.

He wraps his arms around his angel and his nails dig, skidding down Aziraphale’s soft back, holding tight, mind and body and soul begging for more _, more, please_ , _Zira—_

Or maybe it’s his mouth, because Aziraphale’s body jerks like a live wire against his own—neither of them can tell anymore. Crowley doesn’t know where he ends and Aziraphale begins, and it’s still not enough, still not close enough. He wants and wants, aches and burns—is this what it would be like to swallow holy water? Would it be this slow and white hot within him? Would it end his consciousness just as sweetly as Aziraphale is taking his? Or, is this his redemption, his soul reclaimed by something bright and holy—is the soft way Aziraphale calls out to him his mete of mercy?

He doesn’t know, doesn’t care, won’t ever find out, because his world has narrowed to this, to Aziraphale’s hands and voice and body and the way their bodies move together.

His eyes screw up tighter, fingers hooking beneath the soft edges of Aziraphale’s scapulas, and Aziraphale gasps brokenly.

There’s a burst of heat and pressure and the world goes downy white around them both, the inky sky peeking through faint gaps in feathers, Aziraphale’s wings pressing them both tighter together.

“ _Oh god,”_ he hears himself say as Aziraphale cries out, and his mouth burns, burns, then eases. The sensations change, double, and Crowley opens his eyes to see himself, their souls slipping out to the other’s in a desperate bid to be closer.

He doesn’t even know if was him speaking, or Aziraphale within him, but he can see his own face and it’s an electric shock through his entire being—is that what Aziraphale sees, always?

He gasps, strains, and his sight flips again, back to Aziraphale over him and covering his body. Crowley winds legs tighter about Aziraphale’s hips, and curls his fingers into the soft down at the base of Aziraphale’s wings. Everything in him blurs and burns and it’s all so overwhelming that all he can do is tip his head back, eyes screwed shut, mouth open and panting.

_Zira, Angel, Aziraphale—!_

He can’t even bother to use his voice, it’s too human, too needy, and he can’t get it to make words around the gasps and moans, so he calls for Aziraphale with his entire being, celestial and infernal twisted up into a being that has no end, just them, together under the shelter of Aziraphale’s wings, taking stupid risks just to be nearer, nearer, nearer.

 _Yes, dearest mine, yes_ , _always, forever._

He opens his eyes again and Aziraphale is a bright light over him, glowing, his hair shining white and his skin poreless, porcelain, and his whole body reacts, a lurch of love and lust and need crashing over him and he pulls Aziraphale in harder, tighter. His own wings expand, bursting from his personal encapsulated universe with the merest spark of pain, and they push him up, up, harder into Aziraphale.

The rhythm of his body grows faster, jerkier, until he has to close his eyes again, his vision a strobelight of images. Pleasure overflows from him like a cup in a fountain—Aziraphale, around him, within him, filling him until he spills, until Aziraphale spills as well, and together they light up the world around them, white hot and bright and blinding as they lose themselves in their bodies and their spirits, a circle of consecration and condemnation all at once, acts of idolatry to gods they created in their own hearts, the building of a personal temple to each other.

There, in the dunes, in that one moment, there is no longer a demon or an angel—there are two bodies and one ephemeral being made from the very fabric of the universe, two souls knit so tightly that they blend into one unit made of neither Heaven nor Hell, but of the world itself.

It takes a while to settle back into their proper physical forms, as wrapped up in each other as they are, with no thought other than their love. It takes even longer to ride out the emotional and physical aftershocks. Exhaustion carves lines onto Crowley’s face that makes Aziraphale’s heart ache with tenderness.

Crowley snorts, reaching out to trail gentle fingers across Aziraphale’s tender lips, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, crooked and fond.

“ _‘I am my beloved and my beloved is mine’_ ,” he says, voice rough. He laughs as Aziraphale raises an eyebrow. “You’re not the only one who knows the Bible, Zira. We were there when it was written.”

“I never doubted your knowledge,” Aziraphale says, hand trailing up Crowley’s side, resting underneath the sharp line of his ribs. “Beloved,” he adds, slyly.

Crowley nudges him with his toes. “Put away the grin, Angel, I could sleep for a week.”

Aziraphale considers this, then nods sagely. “Yes, yes I do think I could too.”

And so, with a blink, they wink out of the dune-filled desert, just as the sun begins to rise.

And when the human stewards stumble across the sand fused to glass in the shape of wingtips and hands, what they assume caused it is lost to both Aziraphale and Crowley, for going home to sleep for a week is exactly what they do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 18One day, they’ll remember to set a timer, but it’s a long time coming. [return to text]


	8. Holy water cannot help you now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Seven Devils by Florence + the Machine  
> The meeting place, while not explicitly named, is the Tyburn memorial, which marks the spot where the Tyburn gallows were located, and is... probably not a pleasant place for angels to meet.

In London, where a river once flowed, four angels stand, waiting. 

They do not move, they do not speak, for this is unconsecrated ground and they are not here to see the petty little monuments erected by man for their thoughtless slaughters. Two look towards Oxford street, one looks towards Edgwear, and the last to Bayswater. 

The ground rattles, and up from the cracks in the memorial stone, smoke rises, drifting in the air as if it’s searching. It splits, coalesces into a million flies at once, and then Beezelbub emerges, striding towards the heavenly host with a look of bored disgust. There are open wounds on their face, clawed across the side of their cheek, oozing thousands of tiny flies. 

“How izz all the paperwork?” 

Two of the four step forward to meet them, one with clenched jaw and the other with pursed lips. 

“It’s been expedited after their little... _supernova_ ,” Michael says primly. “And yours? Have you secured our jurisdiction of the fallen angel and the Serpent of Eden?” 

“Not my division anymore, I’ve been… removed... from the process. Azz punishment, I’m here azz a messenger. He izz coming to meet you here.” 

Beezelbub’s voice is wry, a grin spreading across their face. Decay spreads from their open wounds and festers across their face, splitting their skin as they leer.

“This wasn’t part of the bargain!”

“Well izzn’t that just what happenzz when you make dealzz with the devil?”

They lean forward into Gabriel and Michael’s space and explodes into a swarming cloud. 

_I’d wish you luck, but I don’t care that much._

“Change of plans!” Gabriel shouts, clapping his hands. He turns to Sandalphon as Michael turns to Uriel, breaking ranks in the awful realization of what’s coming. “We are leaving!” 

“Well, that is certainly rude,” someone says from behind them. 

Michael starts blessing under her breath. They turn, once again a perfect phalanx, and out of the malignant background of the crossroads emerges something truly horrible. 

He seems to emerge from nothing at all, from the very shadow of the humans milling about, unaware of their presence. He strolls across the walkway to the island where they stand, a benign smile on his face. 

If any humans could see the man—they can’t—half of them would describe him as good looking. The other half would say he looks like a man who has been stretched until he’s all planes and angles, taut skin paper-white across high cheekbones and gangling arms— that is: The potential for being good looking is there, but it’s just slightly to the left from where it should be. [19] Tidy dark curls are slicked back from his forehead, but if one looks just right, there’s the semblance of horns. 

His pitch black suit and tie is tidy, if a bit translucent around the edges, and when he steps onto the island he clasps his hands behind his back, the golden sheen of wing-shaped his tie-pin shifting to the color of oil on water. His eyes match the pin exactly, down to the sickly iridescent shimmer and the grin on his lips is too wide, lips too thin. The skin of his face is too pale, the veins under his eyes too dark, and his shark eyes seem to stare without even seeing. 

“Michael! Gabriel! Uriel. Sandalphon,” he greets, tipping his chin. “A nice little reunion. How have you fared, my brothers?” 

“We are no brothers of yours,” Uriel seethes. 

“Brothers, enemies, friends, it makes no difference. We are all colleagues at this moment, once more aligned to a common goal,” the man says, lips curling. “My dear Beezelbub reports that you are out to fell one of your own. If you succeed, and I do so wish you luck—I have come to inform you that he is mine once the proceedings are over.” 

“He is to be executed and the demon who tempted him is to bear witness,” Michael says. “Given the circumstances, we wished to… punish them together, and in a far more lasting manner. However, if you wish to pursue further retribution, the snake can be returned to you. As for the felled angel: the matters of Heaven are no business of yours.” 

The man presses a hand to his chest, shaking his head. “No business! No business of mine! Michael, Heaven is only in business to serve _my_ business! Without me, what would you have? Because of me, I see that God has granted you a semblance of choice, of form and of gender. But I must wonder, dear brothers, if you truly have been given a choice at all, if an Angel is to be felled for choice?” 

He paces back and forth before them, voice clear as a bell, sweet like morning dew. Humans nod, catching the sound through the aura that protects the gathered five. They gather, mill, though something keeps them distant. Their eyes stare, glassy, towards the angels and the man whose voice rises like a preacher’s, so well kept in his suit and tie, eyes shining like blood in the water. 

Where two or more gather in God’s name, God is also there—but then so is the devil, and the devil draws his power on the desire of man. And man just wants so much these days.

“It was a wrong choice, surely, but that was the gift the tree granted, after all: the ability to do wrong. And was that not the reason Heaven had Jesus of Galilee executed? For the furthering of that gift; for the forgiveness from being wrong? Was that not, once again, extended to you, Children of Heaven?”

Around them, the humans chatter, nonsense conversations that echo atop each other into a rhythm that underlies each word. It’s the sound of power drawing, the sound of Hell growing closer, the whine of flies and the whistle of falling bombs. The hiss of a snake, the caress of another man’s betrothed. It pounds in the air, and soon, the riot will come.

The four angels exchange uneasy looks. Uriel’s hand drifts to the needlepoint pin set on her collar. Michael’s lips thin and Gabriel shakes his head, hands turning up. Sandalphon looks dead ahead, then closes his eyes against the sound. A low hum begins to emanate from them, counter to the cacophonous chatter as they begin to pull the song of creation, the vibration of every atom, every electron’s orbit, into being to strengthen their power. 

“Has God truly sent you to fell the Protector of Man? God, Herself, and not just a holy mission you have taken upon yourself? Is this part of your Plan, some part hidden to me when I fell from on high? Oh brothers mine, speak! For this secrecy vexes me, and my displeasure is growing.”

 _Gloria_ , they whisper, _gloria._

They step forward as one. 

“We are no brothers yours,” Michael says. “When the time came, we chose to stand with Heaven and the Creator.” 

The crowd grows silent, then disperses as suddenly as they gathered, and suddenly, the man does not seem so well-polished. 

“You cannot tempt us, and we stand against you in Her name. We speak for Heaven, under permission from the Metatron. We rebuke you.”

“I see,” drawls the man. “So no one has asked the Almighty?”

Michael and Gabriel exchange looks. Gabriel shakes his head. 

“The Metatron is the voice of Heaven,” he says. “We are certain in our need, now more than ever. We have heard this before, from the mouth of your agent. The deal will continue as previously agreed.”

“Angel or not, once a soul is fallen, _it is mine to deal with_!”

“Well,” Gabriel says, holding out a hand. “The demon can be negotiable, but we _must_ make an example of the angel.”

“No angel has been felled since the Beginning, since man was made, and I want. That. Angel,” the man hisses. His teeth grow sharp and his tie-pin begins to seep blood. His fingers turn scarlet as the cement underneath his feet begins to steam and crack. “That angel is the reason that fool demon Crowley interfered with Armageddon, the reason why my son disobeyed. I was so! Close! And those fools went and _encouraged_ that child with their foolish, nasty little display of love and hope! They will be mine to punish. No more quaint little bathtubs of Holy Water, no more deals, I will see to it that their idling fondness of humanity is burned from them _._ ” 

He steps forward, feet melting the bronze placard set into the cement, a memoriam to hundreds of religious martyrs and hundreds of criminals, and the bronze slithers out towards each angel, and as he spreads his hands out, they realize, as one, that they have not prepared these earthly forms for this, for even the barest fraction of power this vessel that opposes them carries, and that they’ve quite severely underestimated their opponents.

Not even the blazing rapier Uriel unsheathes can battle the brightness of the Morning Star, their fallen general, the Lord of Darkness himself. 

Satan smiles.

His lips bleed, burning the skin of his chin as he flicks a finger towards them. 

“Remember they are to be mine,” he hisses as they explode into celestial matter, and he, too, dissolves into his barest atoms, his power burning away at the flesh of his form until all that’s left is an empty memorial island, traffic sailing by, none the wiser as to what happened. 

In Soho, an angel and a demon sleep on, unaware and protected only by the grace that suffuses their sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 19The closest approximation a human could use to describe this man would be “Sherlock Holmes?”. [return to text]


	9. God made man (and his reasons)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonah is vore. Think about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is God Made Man, by Young the Giant  
> ALSO! I'm finally getting around to cross-posting the entire fic to tumblr-- if you happen to see it floating about, feel free to pop in and say hi or give it a reblog!

Common knowledge says that mankind wrote the Bible. Religious scholars say that the Holy Spirit moved apostles to record the texts, and that, when they picked and sorted through them, these texts were chosen by the hands of the Divine. That the Bible is an infallible tool of morality to be followed exactly as it is, because that is how God wants it.

They would be wrong. On several accounts.

For one: they were written by man, chosen by man, and muddled through centuries of mistranslated nonsense judgement-calls nudged along by various demons.

Secondly, everything after Genesis is simply wishful thinking[20]. Do _you_ write everything honestly in a diary, a ledger, a story? Do you write laws with the idea that they’ll be obeyed one-hundred percent of the time? No.

Human hands wrote human words with human feelings to understand the world and their relationships with the Divine. They filled the pages with their laws, with their stories and histories, and their wishful thinking about hope and mercy, underscored with their desperate desire to understand the ways the world can be a terrible place. It is a conversation between all of humanity and the One that made them, in whichever way they so desired. 

Also:

Jonah is vore. Think about it.

In any case, if a new book was to be added in the days after the stalled Armageddon, the Lord would make sure the opening would read a bit like so:

 

 

> 1There came a time where the Lord did hide Their true voice from the world, for the Lord  
>  grieved for Their children and for the world, which was beset with wickedness once more, despite the promise of hope.
> 
> 2And so the final days were set into motion, a Revelation set upon the world. Judgement would come to the world, as promised.  
>  3Yet the Lord found favor in one of Their children, for their love reminded them of Noah. 4The Lord directed Their  
>  favor to their chosen child and their companions, and to the boy they wanted to save the world from.
> 
> 5Yet in the absence of the Lord, denied the Judgement they wished to visit upon their enemies, Heaven grew  
>  restless and righteous in their fury, and Hell grew impatient, and would between them threaten the hope of a  
>  world restored to the favor of the Lord.
> 
> 6And so the Lord spake unto their child, regarded in high favor:
> 
> _“Aziraphale, where is your boyfriend?”_
> 
> 7And the favored child replied,
> 
> “Oh, _fuck_.”
> 
> 8The Lord did not ask again that day.
> 
> 9On the second day, the Lord spake once more:
> 
> “ _I distinctly remember giving you a companion, Aziraphale. Don’t tell me you misplaced him.”_
> 
> 10The angel replied:
> 
> “Oh, _him_. See, when you said _boyfriend_ …”
> 
> 11 And the Lord was amused, for the Lord made and knew the angel’s heart, and said:
> 
> _“Call him, for this is important.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 20 And a few accounts of angels sneaking in and changing manuscripts. One specific angel. [return to text]


	10. If you're afraid of falling, then don't look down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Walking the Wire by Imagine Dragons
> 
> A big thanks to everyone who's been reading and commenting, they make my day!!  
> There's a slew of biblical references that didn't make Footnote material:  
> There's a "real" burning bush, a species called Dictamnus, and it smells like citrus. Before it... you know, burns.  
> Authorities (or Powers) are part of the sphere of angels that help govern creation.  
> Crowley references... a lot of biblical figures. He and Aziraphale briefly discuss Johnathan and David, who die apart.  
> I've taken great liberties with the forms of angels, and just... slammed all that body horror of cherubim and ophanim together.
> 
> EDIT: wow gotta love the cat-assisted “edit” I MISSED like a FOOL

Aziraphale wakes before Crowley, blinking in the sunlight pouring in from the gap in the curtains. The light hits him over the face, warm, and for the briefest second, he’s reminded of the last time God spoke to him at the gate.

But it fades as the haze of sleep drains from his consciousness and he quickly forgets he ever thought about it at all.

He looks to the side, where Crowley is inelegantly sprawled across half of the bed and laughs softly at the sight. It’s strange to hear his own voice, rough with disuse and still scratchy from the aftereffects of pouring out his divinity through his mouth. (And eyes, and hands, and… _well_.)

He turns to his side, simply basking in the sight of Crowley so relaxed and open.

He lifts the hand Crowley has nestled against the curve of his neck and shoulder. He presses his lips to the back of Crowley’s hand, keeps it there, and closes his eyes.

He doesn’t drowse, though he finds himself close to it. He shouldn’t be surprised at the exhaustion dragging at the edges of his consciousness—the effort they’d made was hard for beings like themselves, and they’d pushed their poor physical forms as hard as they could.

He opens his eyes and grins against Crowley’s knuckles. It was worth it. Perhaps in the future, it won’t be so all-consuming, so existentially desperate.

“Crowley,” he whispers, kissing Crowley’s hand, his wrist, his shoulder, the brand at his ear, each eyelid. “Wake up?”

“...absolutely not,” Crowley slurs, turning his head into the gentle pressure of Aziraphale’s mouth.

“I’m going to make cocoa and check on the shop,” Aziraphale murmurs, warmth suffusing his entire being. He drops a few chaste kisses to Crowley’s mouth, cupping his cheek. “Can I tempt you into joining me?”

Crowley opens his eyes and immediately squints, pushing his palm against Aziraphale’s cheek and turning his face away.

“Put away the holiness, angel,” he groans. “You’re a glowstick. A holy glowstick. Of death. Death, you hear?”

“Oops,” Aziraphale laughs, “I don’t think I can help it. I’m just, I don’t think I’ve ever loved in such a concentrated manner before.”

Crowley makes a noise that sounds a bit like _whhrrhuhugh_ and rolls onto his stomach between the bracket of Aziraphale’s arms.

Aziraphale sits on his knees and traces the bit of skin between where Crowley’s wings are tucked away in the otherspace. The skin there is an angry red that fades to black-green bruising, tiny black scales spreading from the epicenter of his shoulderblade, where the humerus and scapulars of his wings burst from his flesh without the usual coaxing of atoms to ease their path.

He murmurs softly, feeling the heat radiating off of Crowley’s skin. They’d been so rough with each other’s forms in their desperate bid for closeness and love, and while Aziraphale knows neither of them would trade it for something softer, that neither of them regret it, his heart still aches to see the lingering effects on Crowley’s body.

He leans forward and brushes his lips against the tender skin, and the inflammation fades, the little scales growing shiny and smoothing flat to Crowley’s skin. Crowley sighs softly. He should have known to remind Crowley to ease them out, but his mouth had been so otherwise occupied…

“Oh, Crowley, I…”

“Angel, shush,” he murmurs into the pillow. “Don’t worry. Go make your cocoa.”

“Will you be joining me?”

Crowley tentatively stretches his arms out, fingertips brushing the wall between the iron bars of the bed frame. “Mmmmn, no. Sssssleep.”

Aziraphale smoothes a hand down Crowley’s spine, palm resting in the warmth at the small of his back. Crowley stretches again, body sinking into the sheets like a snake on a sun-warmed rock. Aziraphale smiles and kisses the nape of his neck, lingering over Crowley’s body.

“I’ll be back soon, then, don’t hog the bed.”

“Mmmphmfhmmmaybe.”

Aziraphale knows that when he comes back, Crowley will have managed to take up the entirety of the bed with his lanky limbs, and he finds that he really doesn’t mind one bit. He’s not usually one to partake in lazing about and sleeping—though, he supposes all of his books count as ‘lazing about’ in the eyes of Head Office—but the idea of settling back into bed with a good book and a cup of cocoa and Crowley snoring beside him is quite cozy.

He slides from the bed, dressing himself simply in a pair of cotton sleep pants and a jumper that he’s not sure if he really owned before or if it simply manifested from his desire to just be comfortably domestic. A little of both, he decides, smoothing out the knit front.

Crowley snorts and Aziraphale looks over his shoulder, lips pursed. “Yes?”

“You,” Crowley starts as he turns his head back into the pillow. “Look like a dad.”

“I can, and will—”

“Pet my plants, I know.”

Aziraphale grins smugly and draws his shoulders back. “Put ice in the pillows.”

“That is rude,” Crowley says, pulling said pillow over his head. “If you do, I won’t ever kiss you again. Listen to you! I’m too good at being a bad influence.”

“Perhaps, but you’re a bad liar,” Aziraphale shoots back.

“Ugh!”

Aziraphale laughs and gives a shake of his head. “Sleep my dear,” he murmurs. Crowley kicks the sheets in reply and when Aziraphale goes to close the door behind him, he finds his fingertips glowing with the fondness that wells up within him.

He shakes his fingers out, light flinging off of them like water. Where the light lands, wallpaper uncurls itself, hinges are oiled, the massive pot of aloe in the corner day unfurls its vibrant orange bells; the one stair that has begun to creak in the past five years is silent as he descends to the shop.

He checks to make sure no one’s come poking around the shop while he’s been asleep—supernatural or just plain nosy humans, then picks up the post from where it’s piled upon the floor. The most current date shows that they did, in fact, sleep for a week—and a few days.

It’s a bit alarming in the most novel way.

He tucks the newspaper under his arms and moves to the kitchen. He gathers up his mug and the little jar of sugar and cocoa powder he has mixed up. The cream has spoiled, so he taps the carton and nudges the last little bit of lingering blessings that linger in the tips of his fingers. The cream loses its sour smell and un-curdles, but it takes on a distinctly golden sheen.

Might shouldn’t feed that to Crowley, he decides, unsure if he just made the world’s first instance of holy cream.

“Ah, well,” Aziraphale sighs. He fills the kettle and puts it on to boil. The pilot light clicks and the kettle is immediately consumed with fire.

Aziraphale jumps back with a yelp, dropping the carton. The kettle blazes on, the fire shifting and growing until it is a pillar licking the ceiling. The kitchen smells like lemons, then something acrid as it burns.

Mount Horeb. The flowers and the leaves and the memory blowing open like an unlocked door during a gale. The mix of citrus and hot soil and sheep, the man with his sleeve over his eyes and bare feet on the mount.

“Oh, oh dear, oh no, not now,” Aziraphale breathes, cream soaking the hem of his pants. “ _Oh_.”

“ _Aziraphale_ ,” says the teakettle. “ _Where is your boyfriend?”_

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Aziraphale says, hand immediately going to his mouth to fight the urge to swear again, because _God_ is in his _kitchen_ , speaking through his _kettle_. He is an angel, he will not swear, but it’s _God,_ in his _kitchen_ , a pillar of flame asking him about, oh, _Lord_ , about _Crowley._

She hasn’t spoken to him since the whole flaming sword incident in Eden. She wouldn’t during the Armawasn’t. In fact, it seems like She hasn’t even been speaking to the other angels either, judging by Gabriel’s befuddled reaction to they way Crowley and he had talked circles about _plans_. Every single instance and assignment he’s ever received since Eden was from Head Office— _go make way for the Lord, Aziraphale,_ or, _Michael’s going to appear in a dream tonight, do make sure the human is properly asleep?_ or, _We need you to make it rain when this happens, to make a point._ But even those… well, no one’s had a real divine revelation in centuries. Or, if they have, Aziraphale wasn’t in the know.

For God to appear, now, well… It can’t be _good_.

So he does what any self-respecting angel fearing divine retribution in his kitchen would do:

He takes a step forward and turns the stove off.

The flames disperse immediately, leaving a small white, five leafed flower atop the teakettle and the lingering scent of lemons. He reaches out and touches the soft petals, and they dissolve against his touch, leaving nothing but the smell and the sick stumbling thud of a vestigial heart in his chest.

Aziraphale stumbles backwards, feeling as close to nauseous as he can.

“No,” he whispers, looking wildly around the kitchen. “No. Not yet. It’s just begun. Lord! Just one more, one more day, give me… _Mother_ , _please…_ ”

The plaintive cry in his voice turns his stomach, turns his legs to jelly, washes him with shame. He is still an angel and if it comes today, then it is part of a Great Plan, but oh… he wishes he could understand his place in it.

He rubs his hand over his face, then turns and walks away, up to the bedroom. He can’t, he can’t do this.

He can’t do it, not without Crowley.

He opens the door to the bedroom, ready to start shouting, but he stops as soon as he sees Crowley draped across the bed, reading some book with plates of various plants.

Aziraphale can’t recall the last time he’d seen Crowley actually _reading_ , not just idly flicking through pages like the written word can be absorbed by just glancing at the pages.

It’s such a wonderful sight that it seizes his soul with grief, with desperate, wistful longing. He feels raw, like some caged feral creature, faced between fear of captivity and the fear of starvation.

Which fear is greater? To be starved of Crowley and his love, his trust and devotion, or to suffer bleak white expanses of Heaven, forever monitored, but remain alive as he is now?

“Something wrong, angel?” Crowley asks, without even looking up.

Crowley, of course. His water, his wine, his daily bread. The hand that has molded him as sure as God’s had in the Beginning.

Aziraphale swallows hard, and with a quiet gesture, he miracles away the cream from the hem of his pants. He can’t ruin this by being afraid. He refuses to hurt Crowley with his cowardice, with the voice of a God that Crowley had fallen to hear. He won’t let all his courageous words be for naught in a moment of fear.

If it happens today, it happens today. He means it, to the very bottom of his soul. But he’s afraid: He’s Crowley can see the despair radiating off of him, afraid he’ll mess it up again, that he’ll mar their happiness with his long standing cowardice, that he’ll crumble before the throne of God and beg.

But even Jesus pled for his life, for fear makes one human, so he braces himself for it, accepts it with every atom of his being. He is afraid, but Crowley is with him, and he is not human. He was made with a core of iron, poured and tempered into a sword of divine will, and he is very, very good at wielding that weapon in most unconventional fashions.

“The cream spoiled,” Aziraphale complains. “Because we’ve been asleep for over a week.”

“You have magic, you can unspoil it,” Crowley counters.

Aziraphale walks over to the bed, sitting on Crowley’s feet just to be obnoxious. Crowley squirms away, aiming a kick at Aziraphale’s leg. Aziraphale grabs his ankle.

“Hey,” Aziraphale starts, then flounders. He swallows hard and squeezes Crowley’s ankle, letting himself tip sideways so his head is Crowley’s stomach.

Crowley closes the book and sets it aside with such care that Aziraphale’s throat tightens and his eyes burn.

How can something so truly wonderful damn someone? The world has only just begun again, with a new Adam and a new garden to guard, one he’s chosen and cultivated and watched blossom. Was he always to fall, but made to wait until he built a heaven of his own to miss?

What will be left of him after this? Will there even be enough to live? To love? This, more than anything, is what he fears. That Crowley is right, that the falling will kill all the soft, wondrous parts of himself—the bits that love wine and good tailoring and tartan-printed teacups and books will be torn away. That they’ll take Crowley from him in the worst way imaginable: Crowley, there, before him while he can no longer love.

He can see Heaven, here, in his home. It’s one of his own crafting, with plants that shake more than they should and cars that go too fast while Vivaldi’s _Killer Queen_ plays in the background, with a determined list of restaurants to visit and ducks to feed, Scrabble games that end with bickering about Latin, wine and coffee and tea and the feel of soft leather jackets against his cheek. Here, it’s here, with him in a way that Heaven hasn’t been since Eden, with this wonderful, terrifying choice he’s made.

“Hey?” Crowley echoes.

“Tomorrow,” Aziraphale offers. “Let’s go do something, something human. Let’s go dancing or have a go on the Eye, or all of it. I’ll even let you play your beebop. I might be coaxed out of the waistcoat for the evening, depending.”

Crowley tips his head and scowls. “Are you… do you feel all right?”

Aziraphale twists, pulling his legs up onto the bed, wiggling until he’s curled against Crowley’s side, head against his chest. “I… I feel a bit devious, to be honest. I think a little of your soul resides in mine, now,” he says, laughing. “Perhaps you kept a bit of mine, too?”

“Is that why I feel like I got sandpapered on the inside?” Crowley drawls. His fingers brush against Aziraphale’s cheek, then smooth the curls away from his temple. “Give it back.”

“No, I like it.”

“You don’t want my soul, angel,” Crowley murmurs softly. “It’s a sharp, broken thing. You saw what it was like, between us.”

“It’s yours, of course I want it,” Aziraphale murmurs, knowing Crowley means that he doesn’t want Aziraphale to hurt because of him. “My soul is knit with yours, and I will go with you wherever, as long as I am able.”

Crowley exhales slowly. “Ah, Zira. Not that one. Not that story. It’d be too much to bear, losing you again.”

“I’m sorry, my dove.”

Crowley grumbles at the petname and Aziraphale wraps an arm around Crowley’s waist. “Pidgeon?”

“Hey!”

Aziraphale laughs, nuzzling up against Crowley’s collar. “Pidgeon, my darling preening pidgeon. Or, oh! What about peacocks, they’re quite lovely.”

“No, no, nope, no, I am a self-respecting demon and I refuse,” Crowley complains, gently shoving at the top of Aziraphale’s head.

Aziraphale laughs harder, squeezing Crowley’s waist. He closes his eyes and falls quiet, his smile softening to something fond. He sighs slowly as Crowley resumes petting his hair, long fingers warm against his scalp. He lifts his hand, resting his fingers in the curve of Crowley’s ribs, feeling bone under warm flesh, every shift and sigh and unnecessary human breath. His fingers fit perfectly, wondrously so, against every angle and divot of Crowley’s body, and even if they didn’t, it would still be perfect.

Here, in this, he could stay for all eternity; the bird could fly, fly, fly, and here, he wouldn’t care.

“Is it terribly cliche for me to want to stay like this forever?”

“In bed? You’ll get restless eventually,” Crowley whispers. “And will want to drag me off into some old store, some restaurant, back into some sort of danger. But… metaphorically, yeah, I… I’ll do it as long as you want me, as long as you’ll have me.”

“I will always, I _have_ always, even if I didn’t admit it,” Aziraphale whispers. “Any questions you ask, no matter how fast you go, no matter how you vex me, or I, you—I have chosen you, even though it scares me, Crowley. Every atom of love that was poured into my soul was meant for humankind and God, and it… it found you instead. I drowned in it for so long, that I fear I’m the one… That it’s _me_ going to fast, now.”

Crowley laughs at this and rests his chin to Aziraphale’s head. “I have a fast car, I can keep up, no matter what. Tomorrow... tomorrow, angel. I’ll go to Madrid, grab us breakfast, and we can eat it on the floor of the Eye, if that’s what you want. Anything you want, anywhere you want to go.”

And he thinks the same thing he did before, before he was ready to acknowledge the floodgates opening at the promise of the world delivered to him. Crowley would pull down the moon for him, if he asked. The rush is terrifying, electrifying.

His soul screams, begs, trembles for this being beside him, who would walk into Heaven and Hell to save him, to protect him.

Aziraphale wants to say:

Everything, all of it. Drown me in your flood, consume me with your fire. Let us fall to our knees at the altar of man, and worship their flesh and their wonders, their will and choices and beautiful, mortal hearts, every single person and story that brought us to this point.

For the world was truly made in God’s own image, tumultuous and enduring, beautiful and fearsome. To love the world is to love God, and to love one another is to worship.

And:

Thank you, thank you for being angry, for loving so badly that you needed to ask, that it was you who tempted Eve, and not some other demon who would fail to cherish the world for what it is. Thank you for being the one to listen, to tempt, to understand people at their barest bones, to understand _me_.

Instead, Aziraphale says:

“How are you going to get twenty five people to ignore an empty Eye compartment?”

Because he knows now that Crowley knows the words unspoken, because part of Aziraphale lives in Crowley now—he feels it stir and rise and react to the love he feels, just like the piece of Crowley in his heart slithers and curls happily with the ability to just _be_.

Crowley laughs and slides his knuckles underneath Aziraphale’s chin, tipping his head up. “Don’t you worry about that,” he says with the sort of devious glee that Aziraphale just knows means something completely disreputable is to come.

He doesn’t mind one bit. In fact, he finds he rather looks forward to it.

What he doesn’t look forward to is the matter of the teakettle.

Once Crowley heads out to pick up breakfast the next morning, Aziraphale rouses himself from his drowsy reading, dresses, and considers the kettle.

There is, of course, the possibility that it’s Gabriel or Michael pulling their _fear not!_ act on him to make a point, but that all seems rather blasphemous.

No, the easiest explanation, Aziraphale decides as he rolls up his shirt-sleeves, is that… His kettle was briefly an avatar of the Lord.

It shouldn’t be as alarming as he finds it, really. He did, months previously, try to summon Her into his bookshop for a chat.

(He was nervous then too, oh how his hands shook. He knew he was wrong then, just as he was wrong now. From day one, he had been taught to not ask questions, but he has so many!)

He stops to apologize to the poor aloe plant now bearing a sign in large letters that says _**I bloomed out of season and should be ashamed of myself!** , _then checks to make sure the door to the shop is firmly shut, and then stops to tidy a stack of books.

Then he simply stands in front of the tiny kitchen, wringing his hands, unable to procrastinate any further.

He steps inside, and then, hands trembling, turns on the gas.

The flames buffet him almost immediately, warm like bathwater, soft on his hands and arms, almost like hands gripping his wrists in greeting.

“ _I distinctly remember giving you a companion, Aziraphale,”_ says the Lord, picking up right where they left off _. “Don’t tell me you misplaced him.”_

Two emotions flood through Aziraphale at once: fear, the holy, awestruck kind that leads humans to fall to their knees, face turned away from the power that made them. He’s always known God knows about the sword thing, and this is the closest She’s ever come to addressing it. Angels have been punished for far, far less.

The other? The other emotion is a very distinct amount of smugness, for God has identified Crowley as _his_ , and God-given at that.

“Oh, _him_. See, when you said _boyfriend_ …” he says, laughing nervously.

“ _Call him, for this is important.”_

“Oh, uh. A… are you, I mean, of course you’re sure, I… I’ll just… be right back.”

The fire flickers softly, the lid to the kettle clicking softly, and Aziraphale swallows hard, eyes burning—he has the most distinct impression that God’s laughing, not unkindly, but a bit like the way he chuckles when he watches Crowley fumble with something while trying to act aloof.

Fond. It sounds fond.

“I, yes, just, pardon me,” he stammers, rushing to the front room. He mangles the number twice, wishing with sudden ferocity that he’d taken Crowley up on the temptation to own a mobile. One button would be so much easier!

Eventually, he manages Crowley’s number.

“ _Angel, I know I’ve been forever, but the guy in front of me is paying in coins,”_ Crowley says as soon as the call connects. “ _And I’m here, going, who thought up **that**?_ [21] _But I’ll be ‘round in a tick.”_

“Actually, Crowley,” Aziraphale stammers, “There’s… a situation. At the shop. In the kitchen.”

_“Did you mess up on the stove again?”_

“Ah… yes,” Aziraphale breathes, turning to look back at the column of fire in the kitchen. “Yes. You could say that.”

“ _Right,_ ” Crowley says, and then there’s a strange doubling of his voice, a rush, then the front doors burst open. “I told you not to try to cook today,” he says, managing to look very suave and dangerous with a brightly colored bag of churros in hand.

Aziraphale hangs up his phone as Crowley tucks his mobile into his jacket pocket.

Crowley holds out the bag and Aziraphale takes it, their hands brushing in a way that makes the trembling of his soul ease, just slightly.

“There’s… an ongoing situation with the stove,” he says gently, setting the churros aside as he presses his hand to Crowley’s back. “It’s… well.”

“I’ll handle it,” Crowley says, strolling jauntily towards the kitchen.

“Oh my dear, I—” Aziraphale calls out, both deeply amused with Crowley’s bravado and horrified, because Crowley’s about to walk straight towards God, and he’s not quite sure if that makes the kitchen consecrated ground or not. He rushes to Crowley’s side, grabbing his arm just as Crowley comes to an abrupt halt at the threshold of the kitchen.

A beat of silence, overlaid with the quiet crackle of fire. Crowley points to the stove.

“Your kettle’s on fire,” Crowley says, brows furrowed. “Did you know—of course you know— Why is the kettle on fire?”

“It’s uh, well,” Aziraphale stammers, eyes darting over to the flaming kettle. He shuffles closer to the stove, dragging Crowley with him. “ _You-know-who.”_

“Voldemort?”

“ _Hello, Crawley,”_ says the kettle.

“Oh, _bloody hell_.”

“Yes, that… That’s quite what I said.”

Crowley clears his throat and makes a face at the kettle. “It’s actually, uh, Crowley now, uh. Kettle… _God_.”

He sounds a bit uncertain that the flaming teakettle is actually God. Aziraphale elbows him in a most indiscreet manner.

“ _If we’re being technical it’s actually—”_

And then the kettle-that-is-God says something in the celestial language of the universe that is otherwise unable to be transcribed or even said with human tongues.[22]

It sounds a bit like the kettle whistling, overlaid with the sound of a storm with the low thrumming heartbeat of the Sun[23].

“Oh. Haven’t. Haven’t heard that one in… millennia,” Crowley says faintly. Aziraphale miracles him up a chair just as his knees give way.

Aziraphale clamps a hand on his shoulder, far tighter than Crowley expects. Crowley looks up at his angel, and finds him white-faced, almost furious. He reaches up and covers Aziraphale’s hand with his own.

“ _Millennia…”_ the kettle muses. “ _Ah. My children. Once,”_ it makes the noise again, the whistling, crackling noise and Aziraphale’s hand tightens further, and there’s a rush of air as they’re both stripped down to their Celestial bodies right there in the cluttered kitchen, tartan and lace curtains flapping with the disturbance. Extra wings knock into teacups, shining eyes blinking in the strange light of the world; faces split into facets, shimmering between various forms; scales grow unbidden from skin, with teeth and splitting tongues and sulfur in the air. Fangs, growing past the point that’s comfortable.

“ _Once you came when you were called.”_

“You stopped calling,” Crowley hisses, tasting copper blood as his tongue darts out to scent the air.

Petrichor, citrus, burning flesh, salt, frankincense, myrrh, Aziraphale, the bookshop, earth.

“Crowley, my dear, please,” Aziraphale begs, his skin pearl white and shining as his feathers spread out. His hands double, triple, and shimmer in the strange light. His voice is pained, strained with the effort of trying to keep himself semi-human,

“My name is Crowley now, and I _chose_ it. And I already _paid_ for it. If you care _, use it._ ”

“ _I showed you great mercy.”_

“That was no mercy, no mercy at all. Don’t, don’t talk about mercy! Tests and temptations and death! That’s all you leave for people,” Crowley snarls, leaping to his feet, wings flapping in the warping dimensions of the kitchen.

The planes of reality stretch, melt, bend until all that there is are the three of them:

Crowley, his angel, and the rainbow iridescent flame of the Almighty in the shape of a teapot.

“You would test your children until their end! You gave choices with no guide but pain as to what was right and wrong. Ask me about _mercy._ Ask your angels, ask the people of the flood, of Jesus, of Job and Jonah, the people of Sodom, of Lot and Edith, and what of Cain, who wished only for your favor! If I had known there would be so much _pain_ , I would have never, I would have never…!”

Crowley sinks onto his knees, and Aziraphale sees the angel in him more than ever, shining shards of white light that pierce like the lance, rippling and warped and beautiful. Maybe before, before Crowley had seen what men can do to one another, before the pain had eased, before he had learned to love and trust once again, these remnants of the divine were simply scars, something that aches and itched and bothered.

Or maybe Aziraphale had turned a blind eye to them in fear.

Aziraphale crouches beside him, bending an elbow beneath Crowely’s arm in an attempt him from his supplication.

Do not bow, he wants to say. Do not bow to anyone but me.

“ _Why? You ask me why, once more? You ask for mercy?”_ The flames jump and lick at the air, and the light refracts. “ _My mercy is a hard mercy. I am the great I Am, and the mercy you ask for is the mercy of man, and man alone. My mercy is beyond even the comprehension of angels, my child.”_

“We showed Adam mercy,” Aziraphale murmurs. “...with the help of humans. I… thought I’d shown Adam mercy, a long time ago. But perhaps I…”

 _“Yes,”_ the kettle hisses, sighs. The flames crackle. “ _Well, Aziraphale you’ve always been… a bit… nontraditional.”_

“Didn’t you _make_ him that way? Why make him like that, why make him suffer when he is—”

Crowley’s question rings out like an accusation, his words almost shimmering in the other-space of the divine. He was a maker once, an Authority who could move a cosmos with a breath, and his voice creates a silence so profound that even the kettle seems to pause to think.

“He is good,” Crowley finishes. “He’s _good_. So why…?”

Aziraphale’s arm slides around him, tight at the waist, his body angled against his side. Crowley reaches out and presses his hand between the roots of Aziraphale’s wings, turning his scale-covered face away from the kettle to push it into the soft skin of his angel’s neck. A thousand eyes close against the skin of his flesh, thousands of feather-light lashes caressing his skin.

It should hurt, to be so closely guarded by something so holy, but this is the anguish of falling, the hollowness rising in him, to have God so close, yet so far, to know that he’s being stripped to his lowest form, while Aziraphale is rising, becoming the wings that guard the gates of Eden, that line the throne of God and proceed the chariot, and what will become of it now.

“ _You always asked questions that had no answers.”_

“And he was punished for it,” Aziraphale says, his voice shaking. A second, third, fourth set of hands wrap around him, holding him safe to Aziraphale’s blazing body. His wings curl around Crowley, all of them at once, a cocoon of shining, blinking feathers, shielding him.

The love and care in the gesture tears a sob from Crowley’s throat. Aziraphale was made to protect Eden, and Crowley realizes suddenly, that he is of Eden too, he is the serpent in the grass, the whisperer of wiles, and Aziraphale was made to protect him, too. He leans into Aziraphale’s arms, letting wingtips smooth his back, his hair, the scales growing from his neck and wings.

“Forgive him, Lord, for he is asking the questions I hold in my heart and he asks out of love for me,” Aziraphale says, voice redolent with power. “Forgive him, I beg you. Direct your anger to me, Mother.”

The kettle sighs softly, and the flames dance before them, tendrils rising and dancing until they burst into motes like dust. A few land on Aziraphale’s upturned face, rolling down his cheeks like tears. “ _Oh, my children…”_

“I know that The Great Plan is ineffable, I know, it just seems… Lord, it’s too much. I understand why, but it all seems too much to bear.”

“ _Is it truly? Those with burdens of greatness suffer under the weight, but I have made you with a mettle that is beyond all testing. Keep your faith, Aziraphale, and hold it tight, for otherwise you will lose it.”_

“I find that these days I… Heaven is… It is hard sometimes, I confess.”

Aziraphale’s voice cracks and crumbles and hitches. He holds Crowley tighter, tighter, tighter still, and Crowley chafes under the divine weight around him. He shifts, pressing smarting palms to the shining flesh against his cheek. “God, if you have come to… if I am to Fall, please. Please do it now and show mercy. Do not send the others.”

_“They are coming, Aziraphale. And I shall not stop them. My child, Aziraphale of the Garden, of the Tree and the Sword, Principality of the Eastern Gate, Protector and Guardian of Man, I have one command of you: Keep the faith in the Plan, for it is ineffable. Love as you have, love as you will.”_

“I… I know I was not, Lord, I…”

Crowley surges to his feet and slips from the protective cage of Aziraphale’s arms and wings. “He’s the best of them, you—you _wanker_ , why, why do you toss away the, the ones who—”

He reaches out and grabs the kettle, face screwing up in pain as the fire flashes brighter than a blown transformer, brighter than a star going supernova. The scent of scorched flesh begins to permeate the air.

 _“Because those who ask do far more good opposite the side who will listen, Crowley,”_ the kettle-who-is-God answers.

“Fuck that,” Crowley hisses and promptly throws the kettle straight through the window into a soggy back alley of London’s Soho.

There’s a moment where the world folds inwards, their vision going black on the edges as the vacuum of space sucks at their very beings, wrenching their wings and eyes and extra hands and bits back into the metaphysical dimension.

“Did you just… throw God out of the window?” Aziraphale asks from the kitchen floor, golden ichor flowing like blood from his nose and the corner of his eyes. “...I’ll have to replace the kettle _and_ the window now.”

Crowley turns, arms spread, his laugh high and hysterical even to his own ears. His shoulders ache, and there’s sores on the inside of his mouth from his fangs. “That’s what you’re worried about, Angel?”

“Well. Yes, actually. It doesn’t do any good to worry about the other bits.”

“That was—it was—six thousand years and—Aziraphale! There’s a—”

“Yes, I rather feel ass over kettle myself,” Aziraphale says dryly, touching the ichor streaming over his lip.

“ _They’re coming_ ,” Crowley hisses, falling to his knees in front of Aziraphale. He spreads his burnt palms up.

“Oh, do laugh at my joke,” Aziraphale pleads. “I might lose my mind if you don’t.”

Crowley’s hands hover over Aziraphale’s face, shaking. “It’s very funny, yes. Ass over kettle, but _angel_ , they’re coming.”

Aziraphale looks up at him, face spattered with gold and pale, eyes wide and shining. There’s a moment where his face is grim and taut with the stress of their encounter, but it vanishes as he studies Crowley’s face. He grins, that full-faced beatific grin that scrunches his nose and shows his teeth and makes his eyes shine. Crowley splutters in confusion.

“Did She scramble your brain, angel? Come on, get up, it’s no laughing matter,” he urges.

“She called your name,” he whispers. “My dear, She called your _name_. The name you _chose_. You said, you said, if She cared, She’d use it, and she did, _Crowley._ ”

“Yes, yes,” Crowley says dismissively. He makes a gesture and a charcoal handkerchief appears in his hands, and he presses it tentatively to Aziraphale’s cheek, making a face as the silk hisses as it touches the golden ichor on the angel’s face. “She’s also a bloody pain in the ass, riddle me this nonsense.”

Aziraphale takes the handkerchief from Crowley and wipes the ichor from his eyes. “She still knows you, Crowley, you weren’t forsaken,” he breathes, looking incredibly pleased. “She addressed you as a parent would, the same as She spoke with me. You are still loved, you have always been loved, Crowley.”

“Well, I knew _that_ ,” Crowley says. “I’ve had you, loving me for six thousand years. If, if you weren’t around, I don’t know what I’d have become. You’re the only… You’re the best of Heaven, the best of the love that was made, even when you’re infuriating and stubborn and when you break my heart. Knew you’d imprinted on me like a duck, that there was someone out there loving me for some unfathomable, stupid reason. Didn’t always like it, didn’t always agree with it. But, I’ve known. Just never how much, or in what capacity until recently.”

Aziraphale sighs slowly, a soft, heartbroken thing. He sets the handkerchief on the floor and takes Crowley’s hand in his.

“My foolish, headstrong fallen angel,” he says. He passes a palm over Crowley’s, gold-coated lips pursing as the blackened skin turns red, then the pink of new skin. “Whatever will I do with you?”

Crowley laughs softly as Aziraphale takes his other hand, fingers slowly tracing over the burns left on his skin. “Keep me?”

“You aren’t a pet,” Aziraphale tuts. “I can’t _keep_ you like you’re an animal.”

“I can turn into a snake,” Crowley offers, gingerly picking up the handkerchief from the floor and pressing it to Aziraphale’s chin, slowly wiping away the ichor drying there. “If you’d like.”

“Yes, yes, I know, you’re a great bloody serpent, but I’d rather have the man.”

“Being lewd are we, what was it, Angel of Eden? Protector of… Sushi?”

“That wasn’t what was said,” Aziraphale says, the testiness of his voice offset by the way his eyes scrunch up at the edges with silent laughter. He takes the piece of cloth from Crowley’s hand and leans back, dabbing at his nose. “It was quite a mouthful.”

“Since when _did_ you have such a… an impressive title?”

Aziraphale pauses, pinching his nose with the handkerchief. “You know… I, I don’t know. I didn’t realize there was more after the eastern gate bit.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be baked in? Doesn’t it just get beamed to your head?”

“I mean, after a fashion, yes. Heaven is free to change your posting, but… essentially, the Almighty is involved in _rank_ promotions and such. The Archangels can shuffle you wherever, but they can’t make a Virtue a Cherubim or vice versa. Only She can do that. They can do it under Her orders, sure, but God has to approve of it. It’s a grand ordeal, but there haven been any real promotions in centuries, just shuffling within the spheres. ”

“Meaning?”

“I’m not sure,” Aziraphale muses. “It must have to do with keeping Adam and Eve from going back to Eden? Certainly, I’ve never protected anything competently in my life.”

Crowley shoots him a look and laughs once. “Books.”

“Hush!”

Crowley snorts, loudly, and Aziraphale laughs as well, checking the handkerchief. Once he’s satisfied he’s stopped bleeding, he miracles it away and stands, offering his hands to Crowley.

Crowley looks up at him, a lopsided grin on his face, with such fondness radiating from his lanky-limbed form that Aziraphale thinks he might melt away to celestial goo right there. Crowley takes Aziraphale’s hands, holding them tight as he rises to his feet.

They leave the kitchen without a backwards look to the shattered window, picking their way through the mess their wings made, towards the center of the shop as they make their way to the front door.

“You didn’t have six arms the other night,” Crowley comments, voice awkwardly nonchalant. “Could’ve done a lot with those.”

Aziraphale splutters. “Pardon you!”

“You’re the only one who can, angel,” Crowley drawls.

“It sounds like God is perfectly willing to,” Aziraphale says lifting his chin. “She called your name and called you her child. It’s not just me who— _oh_!”

Crowley presses him up against a shelf, hands on his jaw, in his neck.

“Angel, angel,” he whispers, one hand dropping to the softness of Aziraphale’s waist. He can smell the salt and incense scent of divine ichor on him, mixed up with earl grey and parchment. “I only want you, your forgiveness, so… Shut up.”

He kisses Aziraphale, soft and sweet, then hungry and desperate. He slips his hand to the small of Aziraphale’s back, underneath this shirt, holding him close. He presses and presses and feels, wishing to crowd Aziraphale into some safe corner, tuck him into the spot in his soul that aches with the newly opened scar of the absence of God, the new chasm where the fear of a life with the absence of Aziraphale screams. He longs to smooth away these pits in his soul with Aziraphale’s mouth, his skin, his presence.

“Zira,” he says, reverence dripping off of his tongue like honey.

Aziraphale huffs against his mouth, arms draped over Crowley’s shoulders. “No, not that,” he whispers. “Use my name while it’s still mine.”

“Forever, I’ll say it forever, Aziraphale,” Crowley breathes, mouth dragging down Aziraphale’s neck. “ _Aziraphale_.”

Aziraphale groans and guides Crowley back up to his mouth. They kiss, clinging together in the storm of emotions their souls have been whipped up into, each finding safe harbor in the other’s tumultuous heart.

They’re still kissing when the door to the shop bursts open, when the ground begins to rumble and crack.

And frankly, they kiss through that too, because the least Heaven and Hell can do is _knock_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 21He did. [return to text]
> 
> 22 It ended, as traditional, with the -el sound. [return to text]
> 
> 23 https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/sounds-of-the-sun [return to text]


	11. Where are her hands?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the new tags/warnings here, lads!  
> They come into play next chapter!

There is a woman in Hyde Park. 

Perhaps that doesn’t sound extraordinary, and perhaps the woman doesn’t seem very extraordinary, either. If one was to remark on her, because people can see her if they choose to, perhaps they’d remember steel gray hair, or sharp eyes. 

Maybe what would be remarkable is the deck of cards she shuffles, a strange thick thing of mismatched cards, part Rider-Waite, part playing cards, a few Uno cards—

Wait, what was that? There’s something else happening?

No, I suppose this isn’t terribly important. All right:

In a bookshop in Soho, a door is slammed open…


	12. You felt like Heaven stood up in you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big shout out to everyone who's read and enjoyed so far! Bigger shout out to my lovely friends who checked over this chapter! Do mind the tags! I've been told it's not too terribly explicit but the violence/torture is still _there_.  
> Chapter eleven title: Where is Her Head  
> Chapter twelve title from: You Had Your Soul With You, both by The National

The door to the shop slams open at the same time the ground begins to tremble and crack. 

Crowley makes a gesture against Aziraphale’s back, sunglasses appearing on his face as Aziraphale curls defiant fingers into his hair, and then they’re kissing again as a veritable legion pours into the shop.

Fourteen angels enter: 

The seven Archangels: Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon lead. Zadkiel, Raphael, and Camael spread behind them. Behind them come the Virtues, shining armor hiding their faces. The heavenly host spreads out, fanning into ranks across half of the circular space in the center of the shop. 

On the opposite side of the rotunda, the ground belches and smokes. Beezelbub, Hastur, and Dagon step forth from the cloud of sulfur-stench and ash, dead-eyed and sneering. 

Aziraphale’s hands tremble in Crowley’s hair. 

_Hush now,_ Crowley mouths against Aziraphale’s lips.

“I hate to break up your deep… _moment_ ,” Gabriel says loudly. 

“I don’t,” Beezelbub sneers. “Stop eating each otherzz facezz thizz instant.” 

“Well, listen, civility says we can’t just say that,” Gabriel counters. “We can’t just storm in here and point out that they’re doing lewd things with tongues.” 

“Oh, for Satan’s sake,” Crowley hisses and somehow, Aziraphale finds himself shaking his head, fondness cutting through the fear. “Can’t a demon pin an angel to a wall without getting interrupted these days?” he snaps, turning to face the spread. 

Aziraphale straightens his shirt out, tugging on his rumpled sleeves and wishing he’d worn his bow tie, at least. A little bit of comfort, a little bit of his daily armor. He rests a hand on Crowley’s elbow, studying the faces of his angelic cohorts, then turns to face the leering faces of Crowley’s. 

He feels Crowley tense up, muscles coiling like a spring. He steps forward, putting himself a hand out in front of Aziraphale to keep him back. 

“Let me guess,” he begins. Michael’s jaw tightens and Gabriel’s eyes narrow. Uriel stares dead on at them. Beezelbub casts their eyes to the ceiling. “Be not afraid, for—” 

Aziraphale grabs the back of his jacket in warning. “Crowley, not now _—”_ Aziraphale hisses, but Crowley barrels on. 

“You bring tidings of great bastardry,” Crowley finishes, pointing towards the group of archangels with a snap. 

“Charming,” Michael says. 

“Quaint,” Uriel echoes. [24]

“Well,” Gabriel says loudly, clapping his hands together. “It was actually _joy_ , but we’ve obviously got ourselves a different set of… circumstances.” 

Raphael gives a quiet murmur; Zadkiel touches her arm and shakes their head, and behind them, the seven Virtues stand, silent, eyes forward and shadowed underneath their armor. 

“ _I’ll_ take joy in it, alright,” Dagon drawls. 

Aziraphale twists his fingers into Crowley’s blazer tighter, his body bow-tight by Crowley’s side. 

Crowley leans back onto his heels, waving a hand dismissively at the trio of archangels. He crosses his arms and leans back against Aziraphale’s hand, which has flattened against his spine, a firm gesture that communicates everything he needs to know. 

_Stand down_ , it says. He bumps his elbow into Aziraphale’s side. _I’ll do as I please_ , it says. Aziraphale tuts quietly. 

“And what circumstances _do_ we owe the pleasure of your company?” Aziraphale says, head tipping just so. 

Gabriel looks vaguely nauseous, and he rubs his palms together. “The matter of your…” 

“Treason,” Beezlebub says. 

“Coterie,” Michael supplies at the same time. 

“Yes! Those. Those things, right, all of the above.” 

“I’m not sure I follow,” Aziraphale says blithely. “Could you elaborate?” 

Gabriel inhales and gestures with his hands. “This! Right here! You know!” 

“Oh, get on with it,” Beezelbub snarls. They snap their fingers and Dagon and Hastur step forward, grabbing each of Crowley’s arms, dragging him backwards with enough force to knock his feet out from under him. 

“It’s terrible to see you again,” Hastur says, teeth bared down at Crowley. He reaches out and snatches Crowley’s sunglasses off his face, tossing them over his shoulder without a word. 

“Demon Crowley,” Beezelbub says dryly, a chain of iron appearing in their hands. “You’ve been, once again, found guilty of treazzon. Surprise, surprise. You have not only continued to… do whatever it izz you do with… that,” a gesture towards Aziraphale, “but you also have been accused of uzzing angelic meanzz to thwart your previouzz punishment.”

“Oh, no, that was just a spot of miraculous luck, now,” Crowley says, eyes flicking from Beelzebub to the angels, to Aziraphale. 

Beelzebub sneers, nose wrinkling in disgust. “Did you know we kept quiet? We were going to ignore your pathetic existence, but you are determined to be the only mizzerable creature in existence to be kicked from Heaven _and_ Hell!” 

Crowley inhales sharply, leaning backwards as Beezlebub wraps the chain around his neck and tugs it hard, hauling him up as they lean down, pressing nose-to-nose with Crowley. “All I want to do izz to sit in zze quiet dark of Hell! But do get to? No, because someone keepzz fucking it up!”

They lean in close, turning one cheek towards Crowley, where rent flesh oozes in scores across their face. “See that? The Boss found out,” they hiss. “ _Someone_ told him, and I can’t take out my frustrationzz on _them_ , so you will have to do.” 

The skin around Crowley’s neck begins to steam, black scales crawling out from the places where it touches, and he flinches back further. His eyes widen and dart from Beezlebub’s hands to Dagon and Hastur’s, taking in the thick black gloves on their hands, woven with chainmail and steaming where iron touches it. “What’s uh, on these, so sorry to hear about your encounter, but, this isn’t necessary is it? The uh, what’s this made of again?” 

“They’ve been blessed,” Michael says with a tip of her head and a dry smile. “It’s been a while since we’ve had to hold a demon captive, and we’d quite wondered if it would work. A bit barbaric, but… We _are_ working with demons.”

“We’re right here, you know,” Dagon says. “We tried to do it the proper way, it isn’t our fault he mucked it up by not dying.” 

Aziraphale turns towards the angels. “Stop this at once!” he demands. “This is, this is very, it’s _unnecessary_!” 

“Once again, you’re in trouble too, Principality Aziraphale,” Uriel says. “Your boyfriend can’t protect you now. We don’t know what you did to survive Hellfire, but the fact remains that you defied the Will of Heaven and lost sight of the Plan.” 

“But you needn’t hurt _him_! It’s _me_ you’re angry with!” 

“I mean, _we’re_ awfully pissed with him,” Dagon says offhandedly, grinding her heel down onto Crowley’s discarded sunglasses. “Thought it was obvious.” 

Crowley struggles even as Beezlebub tightens the chain around his neck; he doesn’t need to breathe, but the crush and grind of his windpipe is painful as he feels his skin blister, crackle. Behind him, Dagon and Hastur wield similar chains, manacling his hands together. Immediately, his wrists burn, a buzzing sort of pain traveling to the tips of his fingers and up his arms. 

“ _Aziraphale, shut up_!” Crowley chokes out. “Just let them get on with it!” 

Aziraphale rounds back to Crowley. “Don’t you start being sacrificial! I won’t have you hurt!”

“This is disgusting,” Hastur mutters. “I hate this. Can I shut him up?”

He says ‘ _shut him up_ ’ like he means ‘ _kill him_ ’. 

“No!” Gabriel and Beezlebub say as one. They trade looks, and Beezlebub’s mouth curls back into a smirk when Gabriel looks away first. 

“No,” Beezlebub repeats. They look uncomfortable for a moment, then roll their shoulders. “Remember, once he Fallzz, he getzz taken to the Boss.” 

Aziraphale feels his entire body go cold, like the essence in his body had been replaced with ice water. He sees, as if in slow motion, the color drains from Crowley’s face. Watches as he rears up, straining against the chains around his neck and hands, face screwed up in a mix of horror and pain that Aziraphale can’t bear to look at. 

“ _Bastards!”_

Aziraphale turns and finds that Gabriel won’t meet his eyes. 

None of his superiors do; only Raphael and Zadkiel will look at him as Crowley continues to shout, magic boiling up off of him in hot waves that rattle the floor and knock books from the shelves. But even their faces are vague, like they’re not truly present in the moment, and Aziraphale knows there will be no help for him.

“ _Bastards! You’d feed one of your own to Satan just because he isn’t perfect? Because you couldn’t kill him? Because he kept you from destroying the world? I’ll kill you!_ ” 

“Can you keep your pet demon _under control_!” Uriel snaps, batting away a book that nearly clips her on the shoulder.

“Why, he is not a _pet!”_ Aziraphale scoffs.

Crowley falls silent, his breath heaving somewhere behind Aziraphale, a low laugh starting deep in his throat. 

“Sure I am, angel. That’s what I am to them, see. See, they think you say stop, and I stop. You say sit, I sit. But what really happens is you say _come, pet_ ,” Crowley drawls, his voice tight and bordering hysterical. “And Icome _.”_

Aziraphale pinches his nose in distress. “That is _not_ necessary!” [25]

“That is... frankly disgusting,” Gabriel says. “And far worse than before.”

“Nauzzeating,” Beezelbub grouses. “Dagon, Hastur. Shut him up.” 

The crack of bones echoes loudly in the room. Aziraphale sees Raphael wince, and he turns so quickly he stumbles over a fallen pile of books. He falls to his hands and knees, mouth falling open in shock as he looks up through the formation of the other demons’ legs. 

It’s like he sees in pictographs: Beezlebub, their back turned to the scene, shoulders straight. Dagon and Hastur, leaning towards Crowley—some iron-and-glass bookend from off a shelf dripping in Hastur’s hand before it falls to the floor, rattling. The echo of it, the meaty crack as Hastur’s foot comes down on Crowley’s already bleeding face, right on his nose, the tin-like ringing, the heaving of Crowley’s breath bounces in his skull until he can’t hear anything but a high whine as he gasps, over and over, eyes fixed on Crowley and Crowley only. 

It isn’t as if he’s never seen Crowley bleed—he’s tended to more than his fair share of cut fingers in the past few weeks as they try to learn how to use paring knives, and they are over six thousand years old—but this is his _bookshop_. It’s no battlefield, it’s no accident, no stray mugger or scraped hand on broken glass. 

This is his _home_ , his Crowley, bleeding from his nose and mouth. Crowley, his nose a crooked line, the apex of his cheek dented in where the bone had… had… 

His demon, his friend, his Crowley—Crowley crumpled on the floor, knocked clean into one of the columns holding up the skylight above them. There’s something shining on his cheek above where a vicious cut of flesh gapes from where the bookend ruined his orbital bone. It shines in the light like tears, leaking from his eye, where the skin is swollen yet strangely indented and—no no no rings a litany in his soundless ears, no no no—

His lips are cut, smeared dark red—once, at the Dowling’s, Crowley as Nanny had swiped a hand across her delicately painted lips one night while drinking, and Aziraphale had thought about it for weeks. Crowley’s blood now is the same color as Nanny Ashtoreth’s lipstick then, and that’s the thought that sticks with him: 

If this continues, he will never see Crowley done up like that ever again, because neither of them will exist to play around with those things. 

Crowley begins to sag against the column he’d been knocked against, chest heaving, eyes still closed tight, but Dagon reaches out and yanks his head back. 

“Nuh-uh, can’t pass out now,” she snarls. “They want you to _watch_.” 

“No,” Aziraphale whispers, fingers curling against the floor. He’d drawn in chalk here once, to summon God, and She didn’t come. 

“Please,” he whispers, knowing She won’t come now, yet hoping anyway. “Help him!” 

Aziraphale clambers up onto his feet and stumbles forward forward, reaching out to grab at Beezlebub’s shoulders. They step back as the hilts of two shining lances cross above his arm. Heat blazes from the clear metal, liquid gold running through their core. 

Aziraphale whips his head to the side, meeting the steel-blue gaze of Camael, who shakes his head slightly. He turns to Uriel, who merely glares at him, her brows drawn tight and eyes blazing with the righteous fury of an angel wronged. 

“Do not pass,” Camael says. 

“He’s _hurt!_ You are the angel of _justice_ , where is the justice in this!” 

“I am also a herald of war, Principality,” Camael says.

“Your loyalty to the enemy is disgusting,” Uriel says. “It is _dangerous_. Look what it has brought to you.” 

“How is it wrong to show compassion for a creature God has made?” Aziraphale pleads, reaching out to push the lances away. They blaze as he touches them, a holy light that makes his eyes water and causes Beezlebub to step backwards again. “There is no need for senseless violence!” 

“God cast him out, Aziraphale,” Michael says, her voice light and pitying. “Any compassion you have for this serpent is wasted. It is well meant, but you are young, and you have lost sight. Demons can’t _love,_ Aziraphale. That was pulled from them when they were Felled, all love comes the Lord’s grace, and demons are graceless. God doesn’t even love him anymore—how can you possibly believe a creature like that can _love_?”

“Not true,” Crowley protests, his words slurred as blood, thick and black, trickles from his lips. Dagon kicks him in the stomach. He coughs, splattering the floor and Aziraphale takes a step back in horror. 

“Crowley—” Aziraphale breathes, hands covering his mouth. He turns back to his fellows. “No more, please, Gabriel, Michael, no more, please, just get it over with, but not him, please, you must stop them—Raphael, he was one of your wards, please, make them stop!”

“It’s time,” Zadkiel murmurs as Raphael shakes her head, eyes closing as her mouth pinches down. He steps forward, gripping Gabriel’s shoulder. “We are above ceaseless torture. While we may not be able to spare them their fates, it isn’t necessary to make our brother suffer. It is done, brother.”

“Yes,” Gabriel says, turning his head away. “It is done. Uriel, Camael, stand down. We… It’s. Yes. The Stronghold will sentence you now, Aziraphale. We tried, you know. To save you from this.” 

Uriel and Camael lower their lances as Gabriel’s voice falters. They turn their heads away and fall back into rank. The only sound in the shop is the wet rattle of Crowley’s gasps and the quiet hitching in Aziraphale’s breath as he struggles not to sob. 

The Stronghold, the collective agency of the seven Virtues, drag their spears against the ground as they step forwards, arcs of light springing forth until Aziraphale is trapped within a cage of sparks. They reach through the cage, and fingers covered in chainmail gauntlets touch him: his eyes, his mouth, his shoulders. His hands are last. 

The Virtue who takes his hands turns them palm upward and scores one sharpened metal nail across the inside of his wrists. Ichor wells up, and spreads across his palms, and Aziraphale almost retches as he remembers a man, the nails, and the crown of thorns. The Virtue holds him steady, eyes unreadable beneath the visor of their helmet; they turn his hands over, and the ichor flows downwards, splattering at his feet. 

It spreads out, tracing the path of the circle he’d drawn in chalk before the Apocalypse, and the light flares so brightly it makes the molten gold of his blood look black and sluggish like Crowley’s. 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley groans. “ _No_.” 

Time stops. 

Aziraphale can feel it, heavy against his skin as this one moment stretches into infinity. In this forever, he can feel each Virtue reach into him, their deft fingers combing through the sands of his memory for their counterparts, and there, they find them: all seven sins, every commandment broken, every wayward step he’s taken on this earth from the moment he passed his sword to Adam to the second he’d laid Crowley down into the sands in Namibia to the way he’d looked up at God in terror. 

They speak, a whisper in his ear that rings into his very marrow.

_You have lain and known the Serpent of Eden,_

_And have indulged in the fruits of the earth._

_You have wanted more than your station,_

_Yet have grown worse than idle in your duties to Heaven._

_You would fight your brothers divine_

_Out of covetous desire for your lover’s freedom._

_Yet you have heard the voice of God!_

Time starts once more, and they turn their backs to Aziraphale. 

“He has been tempted,” they say as one, “And he succumbed.” 

The silence that follows their proclamation is long, nauseating. Aziraphale clenches his hands together against his sternum, fingers slick with his own lifeblood. 

He swallows hard and tries not to fall to his knees and cry out, for he has never seen such sick, pitying looks on his superior’s faces. 

They look pained, like this information has wounded them, and the wound has been proclaimed fatal. But they once wanted to kill him, so why, why look like that? He wants to shout, wants to rail at them like he’s railed at Crowley, have a go and tell them off—they have no right to look like that when they’d already made it clear that he’s some _pet_ that can be disposed of. They are not on his side, so they have no right! No right! 

“You have been found guilty of sin,” Gabriel says, his voice quiet for once. He steps towards the barrier that holds Aziraphale in place. “And you have interfered with the agency of Heaven. The price of treason is steep, Principality Aziraphale. I don’t understand why you would do this, not when we’ve shown you mercy. Now everyone… everyone will know, and… What have you done? Why would you do this? It never ends with one angel, Aziraphale, you have… You could damn us all. It’s never just one angel, Aziraphale. Not after an upheaval. Why. Why would you turn your back to Heaven?” 

“There’s still time, Aziraphale,” Michael says gently, taking her place beside Gabriel. “Repent, denounce the serpent, call him by his name—traitor—and plead for forgiveness, and we will tell the Lord of your change of heart. Turn away from him now, allow his superiors to deal with him, and we can surely forgive you.” 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley whispers. “Do—”

His face is shoved up against a book on the floor now, Hastur’s foot grinding against his temple, pages hissing as sulfuric blood hit their delicate spines.

His words are lost in the roar of Aziraphale’s anger, in the scream of his heart to see him so bashed and battered, to know that Crowley was going to beg him to _do it, angel, just do it, I’ll understand_. 

There are times when it’s easy to forget that Aziraphale is one of the warrior castes, that war and battle were poured into his mettle just as love and compassion were, that God meant for him to protect, and by God, he would. They’re both so used to Aziraphale’s softness, his tendency to pull things to him to keep them safe, like he had that morning, instead of fighting. 

But sometimes, Crowley can remember: The sight of him in that bright space, his sword in hand and wings spread as he rolled his neck, ready to stand before Adam and fight if necessary blazes when he closes his eyes.

Now is one of those times when he remembers. He wonders if Aziraphale will fight now. 

God gave Aziraphale a sword. Aziraphale gave it away. 

But he’s seen Aziraphale in armor from all the nations, with spears and pikes and bows, with sword and axe and bayonet; they have met in the dark places of this world, in damp and gore and stench, met eyes from across the trenches and known that today, there will be no crepes, no oysters, no wine. Only hardtack and stale water and too few miracles and too high of a toll on his poor angel’s soul. 

He knows, in the vaguest sense, that Aziraphale was made at the end of the Rebellion, to bolster the ranks and to fight the last few bloody skirmishes. It’s only an act of kindness from them both that they never speak of it—for it broke something in the both of them, those last stands of the divine. 

Crowley, when the Heavens opened up beneath him and let him plummet, and when Aziraphale, newly born, had to quench his sword in the blood of the beings who had been made his brothers. They don’t speak of it, but they know. 

They know, just like Crowley knows that if Aziraphale chooses to fight, it will not be for his own safety. 

Crowley does not want Aziraphale to fight. But he’s in too much pain to tell him. He wants to scream, to throw off Hastur and Dagon, to snatch Aziraphale up and _run_. But his consciousness is growing faint, his face throbs to a beat that he didn’t know before, and his entire body buzzes with a growing numbness from the chains around his neck and arms. He doesn’t think this body will last once the Fall is over. 

“I fail to see,” Aziraphale begins petulantly, his voice wavering. 

Crowley supposes it doesn’t matter what he _wants_ , because Aziraphale has a mind of his own. Aziraphale is going to fight, and Crowley owes it to his angel to witness it. 

He forces his remaining eye open and fixes his sight on Aziraphale. 

Crowley knows the blazing look in Aziraphale’s eyes, the way his hands fall from his front, and knows Aziraphale has picked this exact battle, and by god, it means he will not back down. He will watch to the end—his or Aziraphale’s. Whichever comes first. 

“How appreciating the world that God made, for all its glories and pitfalls and indulgences is a sin. Every action I take is in the Lord’s name, and is an effort to glorify Her, an effort to guide humans to Her light through my actions,” Aziraphale says, voice steadying. “Humans already live in fear of God, yet forget Her mercy—are you to prove them _right?_ ” 

Only Aziraphale could pick a fight by insinuating that Heaven was _wrong_ , but frame it in a way that made it sound like he alone was true to God. 

Bless that bastard and his slick way of dodging around loopholes. If the last feeling Crowley will ever feel is the swelling fondness of pride, then this life wasn’t so bad. 

“Nothing?” Aziraphale challenges, and his posture shifts, feet spread as if he had a sword in hand. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have a weapon—angels can wrestle just as humans can. “You have nothing to say? Very well. My answer, then: You can, what was it again? Lick my butt?” 

“...It’s kiss,” Raphael supplies helpfully in the resulting silence. “Kiss.” 

“Yes. That. Kiss my butt,” Aziraphale says firmly.

Gabriel closes his eyes, jaw clenching tightly. Michael sighs. Beelzebub snorts. 

“We will enjoy having him, Gabriel,” they say. “Such a losszz for Heaven today.” 

Gabriel reaches into his breast pocket and draws out a scroll. He approaches the circle, Michael at his side; they stop a meter from the glowing sigils. 

“Let us begin,” they say as once. 

Aziraphale begins to scream. 

He can’t help it, he can’t stop the sound being pried from his very soul. There’s something inside of him that’s just been shut into a tiny little box, a light that’s been dimmed, and he howls at his loss. There is nothing in him, nothing but an aching void, nothing but the screaming. 

There’s a terrible yanking feeling in his gut, and he lifts his hands, watching in horror as the flesh dissolves, leaving first the yellow of fat, then the shining pink of muscle and pearl white tendon traced with the lace of golden veins. 

Then that, too, is gone, and his bones vaporize as that box within him springs back open, the light floods back on, and he explodes into celestial being all at once—he is nothing, then he is everything, and it feels like his very soul is shredding with the force of it. 

The scroll in Gabriel’s hands alights, a thin line of flame illuminating his face from below as it traces the words into snow-white parchment. 

“By the order of the Almighty, we have been given the Authority of Heaven,” Gabriel reads. “We speak as the Choir, as Metatron, as the Holy Spirit, and as the Will. God Herself has blessed these words. The words we speak are Law, and shall not be undone until the final days of judgement.”

He inhales, and Aziraphale flickers. He is a many-winged wheel, a mass of blinking eyes, he is taller than the ceiling, he is smaller than an atom. He is the bird and the wind and the mountain. He is fire, he is becoming fire, he is on fire, he is burning, burning, burning—and then the pain is gone, for there is nothing left. 

The silence in the wake of his screams is deafening. He is the vaguest shape of a man, he is a man, a woman, both. He wears a crown of feathers, he is a ball of light, his arms stretch and wave. His bones bend, bend, then crack and twist, and he is the burning bush, the wind at the door. 

“ _Well, go on,”_ he croaks. 

“Angel, hear this and repent, now before the Lord. Aziraphale, Principal of the Eastern Gate of Eden, Guardian Of Man, you are henceforth stripped of your holy weapons—”

“ _You all know I don’t have them,”_ Aziraphale sighs, lion’s mouth opening wide, then splitting into an eagle’s beak.

Michael clears her throat and Gabriel stares at Aziraphale over the blazing scroll. 

“ _Oh, do get on then.”_

Gabriel shakes the scroll and the words shift lazily. The multidimensional form that is Aziraphale shifts, eyes weeping golden ichor, wheels burning and spinning, hands twisting and writhing, wings beat them down until they are pulpy, bloody, shining masses that alight like the burnt offerings of old. 

“You are henceforth stripped of your holy weapons, troops, and titles. Aziraphale, for your crimes against Heaven are many, you are to be punished until the day of reckoning arrives, when the Lord may once again permit your pardon. You are to be stripped of your rank and…And…”

Gabriel’s head snaps up, eyes wide, mouth parted in shock. “Wait. _What_?”

“He’s to be stripped of his rank and grace,” Michael tuts, then leans over to read the blazing scripture. “ _What?_ What the _devil is this?”_

“This can’t be right,” Gabriel hisses, shaking the scroll like the movement will change the arrangement of letters on it. 

Both angels turn and look at Aziraphale, whose form now stretches into an odd spiral above them all, then he is a beam of holy light, a cosmic galaxy of multifaceted diamonds. Then, he is a black hole, sucking all light from the room. 

“ _Well?”_

He is a dove, pure white, beak shining gold, trailing plumes of olive behind his beating wings.

“You are to be stripped of your rank as Principality,” Gabriel reads. “And demoted. To… to a-a Guardian… angel.”

And then, Aziraphale, as his male-shaped vessel, crumbles in the center of the circle, shoulders heaving as he gasps. He laughs, raising his ichor-soaked face. 

“Guardian angel! Who would have thought? Crowley, did you hear that! An angel!” 

And then he faints. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 24 They obviously do not think it is charming or quaint. [return to text]
> 
> 25 It was. Pettiness is a defining trait of demons. [return to text]


	13. God loves everybody (don't remind me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, a thousand times again, thank you so much for reading! And for the love of my other piece! There are meanings to each card pulled, but they're not entirely necessary to know, save for the one footnoted.  
> Title from Graceless by the National.

Somewhere in the world, in a park, a man and a woman play chess. No, poker. No, it’s tarot. No. Not any of those, that won’t do.

Let’s try again, shall we?

In London, in Hyde Park—no, this time it’s important—

God and the Devil are playing Go Fish, but with tarot cards and chess pieces.

“Where have you come from?” asks the man, moving a shining onyx pawn forward.

The woman tips her head and lays a card on the table.

“From walking the world,” she says, inverting the script from so long ago. “Here and there, up and down. All over. I see you have considered my child Aziraphale.”

She turns the card upright and smiles, her golden eyes reflected in the man’s pitch black ones. The Hierophant, reversed. “Got any fools?”

The man snarls and flicks over a knight with one clawed finger and it shatters across the board. “He is to be mine.”

The woman’s serene smile does not falter. “Is he?” she asks. “I don’t recall agreeing to _that_.”

“You have no power over man nor beast anymore,” the man says, his chin tipped up. “Heaven has acted in your stead, and they have offered that child to me.”

He moves a rook forward and the woman picks up a card from the deck, surveying her hand.

She lays down the ace of hearts.

“Turn your eyes to the east,” she says, and a pillar of flame rises on the horizon.

The man jumps to his feet, teeth bared. “You meddling—thousands of years, you were gone from this place!”

The woman shakes her head. “I was never gone, not while there is still faith. He has been here, so here I shall also be.”

“I was so close! How could I have been _so close?!_ ”

“My friend,” she says, her voice soft and sorrowful. “You never were… no… that’s not right. You always will be, and that’s your punishment, Lucifer, Bright Shiner, Star of the Morning. My first child and closest to my throne. Fallen. Betrayer. Doubter.”

He slams his hand across the table, upturning chess pieces and scattering cards.

The woman turns her cards over, spread across the table. The Devil; Temperance; the Tower, reversed. The Lovers, of course. Five more aces. A king of clubs. A queen of spades. A wild draw four card.[26]

“I will have it all!” the man snarls, shaking with anger at the pity in the womans’ eyes. “I will have him, him and every angel you have favored, every man you have graced, they will be mine, and Hell will reign triumphant, and it will start when I rip those two lovestruck _fools_ from each other! When I show you what hurt comes from trust! From love! When every mouth in Heaven questions your name, your works, your forsaken Plan!”

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” she says, her smile growing hard, feral. She rises, towers over the man, then steps forward, her form sweeping through his as the radiating aura of righteous anger, love, and fierce protection washes over London like a tidal wave.

It calls for her, summons her by name and by faith and by grace, and she flies to meet it.

She lets herself melt in it, in the power of a new angel made from pain and stardust and faith, and for a time, the Devil does not dare to walk the Earth, for it has been consecrated anew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 26 A spread that reads, roughly, “begone Satan, your plan has been thoroughly bollocked by the love of a righteous man, also I stacked the deck a long time ago. Sod off.”[return to text]


	14. Who am I in your temple?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter and an epilogue left! Wow!
> 
> Title from Soothsayer by Of Monsters and Men  
> Quote is from Euripides, Orestes. I pulled the Greek from [here](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0116%3Acard%3D786), the footnoted translation is Anne Carsons'. (You know the one!)

Silence rings out in the bookshop.

“What!?” Beezlebub shrieks. “He _what!”_

“This is, this is most unusual,” Michael breathes, hand going to her chest. “I, this has… I’m unsure if this has ever…”

“He’s still…” Gabriel stammers. “He’s still an angel. Despite it all…”

“You mean to tell me,” Beezlebub demands, advancing forward, pointing towards where Aziraphale lies on the floor, confined in a circle of his own ichor. “You dragged uzz through thizz, for-for what! Do you know what you have done?! Do you know what _will_ be done?!”

“I’m telling you,” Gabriel says, “We didn’t know, we just, we got the orders to deliver a sentence from the Metatron. No one _knows_ what these scrolls read, they’re just, they’re only meant for the people they concern! It’s not like we could, we could take a _peek_!”

“You told uzz he wazz to Fall! You said you were sure of it! Thizz is the bloody Apocolypzzee all over again! Do you mean to make foolz of uzz? Izzz that it?! Do you know what you have done?!”

“He’s waking,” Raphael calls from behind Gabriel. “Gabriel, stand down.”

But Gabriel doesn’t seem to hear her over Beezelbub’s angered tirade.

“Look, we wanted him to Fall as much as you did,” Gabriel snaps. “You aren’t the only one who’s embarrassed about this whole mess! Everyone up in the office knows we had a rogue now and this whole thing will be a nightmare of paperwork.”

“I’ll show _you_ a nightmare, you stuck up, cazzzmere wearing, feather-brained fool, I havvve only tolerated you thizz far becauzze itzzz eazzier but you can’t even do thizz right after all theez years!”

Hastur drops one of the chains holding Crowley up and steps forward. “How about we solve this blasted problem by killing them all?”

No one really seems to pay him much mind. He leans down and picks up the bookend, still dark with Crowley’s blood and strides towards Aziraphale.

“ _Gabriel_!” Raphael cries. She turns, grabbing Michael’s hand. “Michael, brother, _do something_!”

Michael blinks, shaking her head. “I… what _are_ we supposed to do now? Everything pointed to a Fall.”

“Oh, you insufferable prat,” Raphael groans. Michael gasps in indignation. “Stand down before he wakes! Before he’s reassigned by the Stronghold properly! Do you really want to go down as the archangels who got discorporated twice in a _month_?!”

“He wouldn’t!”

“He would! Can’t you feel how- how loved this place is? All of his powers are unbound right now, and you’re a threat to this place he’s protecting!” Raphael grips Michael’s shoulders and shakes her. “Have some sense!”

“Rafe!” Zadkiel shouts, pushing past her and Michael, silver dagger in hand. “Retreat!”

Michael and Raphael turn at the same time, some indignant word dying on Michael’s lips as they look towards the barrier, where Aziraphale lies.

Even Gabriel and Beezlebub stop shouting at each other, every angel open-mouthed with shock as Hastur lifts the bookend above his head. The moment is suffocating in its shock and awe—who else would be stupidly brazen enough to attempt to kill an angel in the presence of the courts of Heaven? It doesn’t matter that Aziraphale is limp, defenseless on the floor, his skin pearlescent with the light of Heaven filtering through his veins. There had already been blood spilled that day, and now, it seemed like Hell was determined to spill more.

But they all remember Cain, remember the bloody stone and the hidden body and the lie told that day.

Most of all, they remember the wrath of the Lord.

“Oh shit,” Raphael breathes. She seizes Zadkiel by the wrist and yanks him backwards, for she sees what the others don’t.

His hands clasp around hers, and he draws her back from the ranks. “Lord, protect us.”

You see, Hastur has made one mistake, or perhaps, he’d made several that day, and this one is simply the final nail in the proverbial coffin: When he stepped forward to swing the bookend down, the very tip of his shoe smeared across the northmost sigil of the angelic barrier.

After that, everything happens at once, really.

A single pale hand shoots out from the gap in the circle, curling tightly around Hastur’s ankle. Golden fire licks up Hastur’s leg, and the demon begins to shriek in agony. He doesn’t melt as much as his form collapses, an interplay of dark red ooze, golden fire, and white bones that crumble into a mound of salt.

The barrier explodes, and Aziraphale is free, a bright-white column of fire surrounded by a whirlwind, a gale that snaps wings into being, that buffets back shelves and books and blows away the semblances of men that stand around him.

Only the Stronghold and Crowley remain unaffected—the Stronghold was never properly corporeal to begin with, and Crowley through sheer willpower alone. Both he and Aziraphale believed that Aziraphale would never hurt him, so he wasn’t hurt.

Wings upon wings that tangle with other wings and armor and robes; gold flakes upon the ground and puddles, lily petals fall and crumble to ash, a glittering night sky opens up. The pyre advances.

“ _Gabriel. Michael. Uriel. Sandalphon… if you could be so kind. Get out of my shop. The rest of you, you’re on thin ice. Actually, you know what, all of you! Get out!”_

“You can’t do this!”

“ _Can’t I? Who says? I am the proprietor of this place, and I say you are not welcome here.”_

“You don’t have the power to—”

“You’ll find he does indeed,” Camael says dryly, one bloodred hand settling on Gabriel’s shoulder. Gabriel’s wings ruffle in irritation. “I believe Raphael has been trying to warn you of this: His power has yet to be bound anew. I advise retreat.”

“Then bind him!” Gabriel shouts, “He is a danger to Heaven like this!”

“It is beyond my sphere of influence.”

“Zadkiel,” Michael calls, her body bright like a star, hand clasped tight to Uriel’s molten gold fingers.

The pillar spins slow, a cyclone of fire. The pressure of Aziraphale’s consciousness presses against feathers, prickles against celestial forms.

“ _Well? Make good on your promise, Gabriel! Michael! We were promised peaceful solitude! We were promised exile! Each of you promised! Shall I show you what an angel tempered in Hell can do?”_

“Go,” Zadkiel whispers to Raphael. He presses an ink-black finger to Raphael’s forehead, and her light shimmers, dims, and she melts into the floor, a small star that darts from Aziraphael’s notice.

“ _I shall count to three, it worked very well when we were with the Dowling child [27]. One.” _

“What happens after three?” asks Sandalphon, sounding dubious.

“ _Oh, nothing pleasant, I assure you. Two.”_

“You cannot threaten us! We still rank you!” Gabriel shouts. “Stand down! I don’t know how you’ve managed to thwart punishment again, but I will not stand for it! Heaven will not stand for it!”

“ _Then don’t,”_ Aziraphale says placidly. “ _Oh. Also. **Three**.”_

Crowley feels something cool touch the back of his neck, like the first drop of rain in a drought. The chains fall from his neck and arms, and he gasps in relief, rolling his head back to test the range of his burned flesh and muscles.

He feels Raphael’s voice more than hears it, a vibration in the atoms that make up his being, like it was long before sound, before waves became meaning, before physical forms were bequeathed to them. Her voice still feels familiar, like he could turn, and he can be young again, a galaxy spinning forth from his breath.

 _Do not make a sound_. _Close your eyes._

He bites back the urge to quip about only having one eye, and he’s loathe to turn his gaze away from Aziraphale’s shifting form, but he remembers Sodom, he remembers the forms that righteous anger can take, and he is so tired. Exhaustion eats at him as it ate at him as he blazed through to Tadfield at the end of the world—mental and physical strain eat at him, weighing him down with the effort of bolstering himself against the angelic chains about his neck, of keeping himself awake, of keeping himself from being swept away in the sudden boiling bright light of Aziraphale’s rarest sort of temper.

He closes his eye, and the coolness spreads against his face. He can smell the metallic burning scent of a dying star paired ethyl formate from the center of Sagittarius B2—raspberries, rum—the very essence of the universe is the scent of Raphael’s celestial flesh. Underneath her scent is the worrying smell of brimstone.

Electricity crackles, raises the hair on the back of his neck, and then all the air contracts in, his chest aching at the sudden change of pressure. Crowley knows what’s coming— he hasn’t seen a true smiting since Sodom, but it’s something that never left his memory.

He flinches back into the coolness of Raphael’s celestial body and her entire essence makes a soft _shhhshhh_ at him.

Lightning cracks, bright white and burning, superheating the air, and for a moment he can feel the energy worming itself under his skin, a spiderweb of energy that travels through his veins, his neurons, through the spaces between his atoms, seeking its target. It flows through him, current redirected so it can pass through the floor and away.

If there is screaming, it’s drowned out by the echoing explosion of air; by the coat rack exploding and bookshelves falling over; by Dagon and Beezelbub trip over Crowley’s prone body in their attempt to get away.

Crowley can’t help it—once the air has stopped trembling and the smell of hot salt begins to fade, he looks for Aziraphale.

He blinks away blood and stinging tears as the coolness around his body shifts into arms.

Raphael grips his shoulders, holding him back as the ringing in his ears eases. He can’t stand anyway, as battered as he is, but Dagon and Beezlebub stir beside him, their flesh blackened with burns and he is thankful for her grip on him.

Aziraphale is man-shaped once again, but only barely. He kneels, so tall that the back of his head brushes the ceiling. His skin is pale and shining, like polished marble flaked with gold foil, save for his thigh, where a scar, deep and black shines like obsidian, the wound from the Rebellion they never talked about, the wound that broke him from Heaven’s warlike path for him. Golden bones shine through translucent skin, and his skull grins out against his downturned lips.

Zadkiel stands before him, palms outstretched as the Stronghold, one by one, remove their helmets. They have no faces, just pale, shining ovals with pits of fire for eyes, hair like smoke that circles Aziraphale’s crouched body.

Behind the small cluster of angels, there are five pillars of salt in various sizes.

“ _I suppose it’s a blessing really,”_ Aziraphale murmurs mournfully. “ _I’ve never really killed anything before, so I’m glad I didn’t start with them. I just wanted them to leave us be.”_

“Will you hear the rest of your sentence now?”

Aziraphale bows his head. “ _Yes_.”

“I am Temperance,” says one of the angels, stepping forward. Their mouth splits their ovalesque face, a tear in smooth silk, a gaping hole to the center of a dark galaxy where their tongue shines silver in the void.

“And I am Patience,” says another. This one has no mouth at all.

“We shall deliver your sentence,” they say together. “Aziraphale of the Eastern Gate, you have been found unfit in your duties as a Principality, for you would leave the Gate to Paradise open to any. Do you deny this?”

“ _I do not,”_ Aziraphale says gently. “ _I never did like fighting.”_

“The Stronghold has released you from your bindings as a Principality and will bind you anew as an Angel, with the task of protecting the creatures and places of your choosing, in addition to special assignments from the Lord,” Temperance says. “Do you accept this punishment?”

“ _If the Lord has tasked me with this, then it is no punishment at all,_ ” Aziraphale says.

“Then all is well,” they say.

“You have been absolved in the eyes of the Lord,” Temperance says, reaching take Aziraphale’s hand. “For it is no sin to love what the Lord has made as an act of worship to the Almighty. Even the most Fallen of us still receives the Lord’s attention.”

“Put down your sword,” Patience says. “For your watch at the gate is over. No more shall you bar man from entering the Garden: you are free to walk among the children of the Lord that you have so long protected, and may freely show them your grace. For you have left the Garden as Adam and Eve did, and now you are tasked with leading them back.”

“Hear us now, Angel,” Patience continues. “Now is the age of the Garden once again, of knowledge and choice. No more are they forbidden from truth, and you may allow them to taste the true choice of knowledge so they may enter the kingdom of heaven. This is a new age, where they can choose to come and go as they please, for they have been forgiven for growing and testing the bounds of the Lord.”

Patience leans forwards and extends a hand, and Aziraphale takes it with his free one. Both Virtues step back, guiding Aziraphale from his knees. The other Virtues kneel, bowing their helmeted heads.

Aziraphale stands, an impossible gesture given his size—he is too big for the building, for eyes, for this world, and then he is Aziraphale, in a white suit and a gold bow tie, eyes like miniature suns, his lips curled in that secretive smile of his, the one Crowley knows is about to prelude a smidge of disreputable gossip or the way a certain patissier makes cakes so that they melt on the tongue.

Those bright, bright eyes close, and his wings burst from his back. They unfurl like petals from a flower, out and over, white and dappled with gold, fully extended so that light streams through his primaries, making them almost translucent.

They glow, no, they radiate, no, they _are_ light.

A hum rises in the air, the sound of white noise amplified, over and over until it’s harmonious, and each light-made feather trembles with it, and _oh_ , this, _this_ Crowley remembers from when he was young. He’d almost forgotten; but he remembers, and it _hurts_.

The light grows and grows and grows, a swell like a tsunami, every photon fleeing each nook and cranny and gathering itself against Aziraphale. There are dying stars making up his wings now, galaxies humans have barely even begun to see because they were so far flung at the Beginning.

Burning tears leak from Crowley’s eyes, his body trying to expel the holiness that gathers around them.

Beside him, Dagon gags and retches and Beezelbub grabs her by the scruff of her collar, hauling her back as they swear. He feels Beezelbub grab for him, their fingers sliding off of Raphael, and they stomp their foot, floor rumbling beneath his knees as Beezelbub tries, then fails, to open a gate to Hell.

“Close your eyes! They’re calling Her power to remake his wings!” Raphael cries, clapping her hands over Crowley’s eyes.

He flinches away, eyes screwed shut as a that swell of light bursts around him. Some of it leaks through Raphael’s fingers, spearing between his lashes and it burns, it burns—he pulls up the corner of his jacket, turning his face into it.

Hands around his neck, cold and gentle, Raphael undoing his tie. He turns to her, blindly as a rush of wind buffets his sore body up against the shelf, and the cloth covers his eyes, blissfully dark.

And then God speaks:

_**You are remade in my image, and bestowed with the knowledge of choice as your weapon.** _

In the rush, he hears Aziraphale’s voice, a murmur as cool as a brook in summer.

“ _If I am finally free to choose, I choose to protect the progenitor of choice,”_ he says. “ _I choose my heart. As I have, as I will.”_

Crowley raises his hands, palms up, reaching for Aziraphale blindly. They’ve barely been apart an hour but he misses Aziraphale like an ache within him, like a limb ripped from his body. It shakes him apart like the fear and pain has torn him apart. Missing Aziraphale is like being stripped of grace all over again, leaving raw and needy and desperate. Aziraphale is _right there_ , but he is so far away, and Crowley is losing control of the will that’s held his body together under the angelic supernova that Aziraphale has become.

He _has_ to let Aziraphale see him, come to him, before this body slips away and they lose each other for real.

He knows, like he knows that water is wet and the world is finite, that if he goes, so will Aziraphale, and the world will be lost sooner rather than later.

_**Then go.** _

Beezelbub and Dagon shout, low guttural cries of anger tempered with terror. “ _Don’t_ _call that thing here!”_

Something grabs him. Laces pure energy through his fingers and holds on.

And _oh God,_ it hurts.

Aziraphale is the fire of new stars, of the center of the splitting atom, the bright light that burnishes the wings of Seraphim, the pillar of flame, the heat that takes every offering pit, every candle light in communion, the blaze in the heart of man and angel alike, and it bursts through the barrier of skin and sinew to the heart of him, wrapping him in the heart of creation once again.

He has felt this before, was once full of the feeling, once called this light of creation up into his cupped hands and blew it like dandelion clocks across the universe, each tuft a new star.

If this fire consumes him, then he will burn away gladly for the chance to touch creation’s core once again. His eyes stream beneath his tie, only to be boiled away by the heat of Aziraphale’s form. The holy fire descending, the lightening of wrath, the fingers that reach down and light the prepared offering.

God is with Aziraphale, and Aziraphale is with Crowley.

God is with Crowley, through Aziraphale.

He is not made for this, he is not made to be in the presence of God in this form. He is not made to know the fierce, proud power that takes Aziraphale’s devotion and amplifies it until it is a chorus made of every atom in the universe. He lost the right to that song, that love, that light that now it floods his every sense and scorches him, fire along a line of gunpowder on the ground.

This is the birth of a new sort of angel, one that fell from their power but rose in God’s favor for it, something never quite seen before—or something so old it has been forgotten by Heaven and Hell.

This is God, using Aziraphale as an avatar. This is God, an avatar of Aziraphale. They, in this moment, are the same thing.

But Aziraphale has always been the god Crowley would kneel before.

“No!” Zadkiel cries. “Rafe, stop them!”

“Crowley you have to let go of him,” Raphael pleads, “You must—”

“Aziraphale,” he croaks. His voice burns. He’s stubborn, headstrong. He’s always been, always will be, and he is _not letting go_. Even if it consumes him whole.

But if he is to be consumed then it means no more wine, no more kisses, no more blond hair under his fingers and eclairs against his lips. No more Queen, no more The Velvet Underground, cars or mobiles or flowers.

No more Aziraphale, no more Aziraphale and Crowley, no more them sitting on benches, no more picnics, no more ducks to terrorize or plants to yell at. No more stars.

It means Aziraphale will be alone, and Crowley remembers those awful aching moments when he thought Aziraphale was _gone_ , and no.

No. No no no, a thousand times no. A million times. He’d snarl _no_ into God’s face every day rather than make Aziraphale feel that loss. He would rip apart the whole universe to keep Aziraphale happy. He’s done it before, he’s done it again.

“Aziraphale, it’s me,” Crowley murmurs, struggling up to his knees.

“Yes,” Aziraphale’s voice projects, echoing through air and soul. He lifts one hand, a thing of light and void and smoothes it across Crowley’s neck. Then up, across his lips, the crooked bridge of his nose, then the being that is Aziraphale at its core leans forward and presses its face to Crowley’s ruined eye. “My dear…”

He almost retches with pain, the feeling of his eye swelling back into its place in the socket blinding him more than the light seeping through his makeshift blindfold. His bones grate and grind as they shift like tectonic plates, his body mending itself underneath Aziraphale’s touch.

“Aziraphale, Zira—please,” he gasps, “It hurts. It hurts!”

“I know,” the angel soothes, “But they won’t be bothering us again, will they?”

Crowley feels the heat split, splinter and rain around him and he holds on, harder, fingers sinking into the softness of Aziraphale’s half formed vessel as the scent of burning skin and scaling salt fills the air, the pained gasp from Beezlebub more horrific than any scream could be. He will hear that noise in his nightmares, of one of the Lords of Hell gasping out and naming Aziraphale as God.

Aziraphale is _not_ God, and Crowley will not have him like this.

He summons up the last dregs of his will, the pieces of him that made him indomitable, the thing that set him so far apart from the other demons. The belief that keeps his world running without petrol or cords or wires or mobile plans, the power that helped him find Aziraphale, over and over, through the centuries.

God can sod off. The Plan can sod off. Aziraphale is _his_ and Aziraphale _will not be the one who kills him_.

“Aziraphale!” he cries, and he surges upwards, pressing his face towards the light. “Angel, it’s over, please—!”

He presses his mouth blindly to Aziraphale’s, his mouth burning, blood boiling in his mouth where their flesh meets. He grabs on with both ruined hands, his skin caught in a cycle of burning away and reforming, bones throbbing where they char and crack over and over again, but still he pulls Aziraphale’s face towards his own, kissing him with a vicious fervor he would never use otherwise.

“It’s over, it’s over,” he sobs, “Don’t leave me, don’t abandon me—”

“My dearest,” Aziraphale says, and his voice cracks. “Never!”

Slowly, the pain eases. Crowley’s skin stops burning, his mouth stops bleeding, his eyes stop streaming. Aziraphale’s hands are still warm as they stroke up his sides, over his shoulders and down his back. But they’re warm like he’s been holding a cup of tea, and not the all-consuming fire of the Lord.

Crowley sags into Aziraphale, legs shaking.

“Oh my dearest,” Aziraphale whispers, the anguish raw in his voice. “I am so sorry, I’m sorry. I couldn’t protect you…”

“Don’t be sorry, it’s… well, it’s. It’s rotten work. Protecting me.”

Aziraphale laughs, and the sound is a delight to Crowley’s ears. “ἀλλὰ κηδεύσω σ᾽ ἐγώ[28],” he says, voice rough. “We saw that during the Dionysia, when the Peloponnesian War was winding down. Goodness.”

Crowley grips Aziraphale’s cheeks tighter, pressing his forehead to Aziraphale’s, body shuddering. “You should… have heeded my warnings.”

“Shh, shh. It’s no matter.”

Aziraphale eases Crowley down, his body curling around Crowley’s. He presses his cheek to sweat and blood-matted hair, feeling Crowley shake against his chest. “It’s no matter at all, dearest mine,” he whispers.

He rocks Crowley against him, then curls his fingers underneath his chin, tipping Crowley’s face up to study his blood and soot stained cheeks. “It’s over now, you’re safe. They’re all gone.”

Crowley jerks, shaking his head as he sees a dark haired angel appear behind Aziraphale—Zadkiel, he’d forgotten about him. And Raphael, they both escaped Aziraphale’s temper, and as he opens his mouth to warn Aziraphale, Aziraphale jolts as well, body tense around Crowley’s.

Zadkiel shakes his head and presses cool fingers to Crowley’s forehead. He sees slender fingers out of the side of his vision, reaching for Aziraphale—Raphael’s, from behind him.

“ _Sleep now,_ ” he hears them both say, and he feels himself grow slack, feels Aziraphale slump beside him, and then everything, finally, is blissfully dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 27 Nanny Ashtoreth only ever made it to three once; after, the mere mention of counting to three turned Warlock into a poster child for semi-decent behavior. A similar effect is about to be ingrained upon several key angels’ minds. [return to text]
> 
> 28 “Not to me, not if it’s you.” [return to text]


	15. Now these songs will hold and hide your name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say one chapter and an epilogue, oops I meant two, because this chapter needed to be split so it wouldn't be like, 10k with wildly ricocheting of emotions.  
> There's more non-explicit sex in this chapter, though it's decidedly more physical than their previous romp, though keeping with the theme, I've left their chosen efforts ambiguous (because it's not relevant to plot).  
> Aziraphale (jokingly) tries to recite Hamlet's letter to Ophelia from Act II, scene ii  
> Title from Lost by Dermont Kennedy

Aziraphale blinks up at the atrium of the shop. 

He briefly questions why he’s on his back in the front of the shop, then goes on to wonder why he feels like one of the poor pedestrians that have happened to have the misfortune of meeting the Bentley’s hood. 

He sits up; his head throbs and spins in protest. Perhaps he’s hungover. It does feel distinctly like he’s gotten roaringly drunk and passed out before he could miracle himself sober—but then the toppled bookshelves, blackening blood, and smeared ichor catches his gaze, and he swallows back a wave of nausea at the sight of tarry puddles of ash and bone. The medal Beezlebub is prone to wearing glints in the sunlight that streams down from the glass ceiling; it’s tarnished with its owner’s own ashes. 

He scoots back, panic crawling up his throat, gripping him in its vice-like talons. This is all his doing, his own righteous anger that brought the destruction that lingers around him. He’d almost be able to accept it, save for the fact that Crowley is nowhere to be seen. 

He grabs a shelf and tries to haul himself up, body screaming in protest as he calls out: 

“Crowley! Crowley! Where are you?”

Aziraphale almost winces at the plaintiveness of his own voice, of how it echoes out like the cry he’d heard ring through Eden so very long ago. 

“Overr heeeere.”

The answer is quiet, but it’s Crowley’s voice. Aziraphale sways on his feet, nearly tripping over the steaming remains of Hastur’s coat draped over the bookend he’d used to crush Crowley’s face in. 

He steps around it, glancing around for Crowley. “I don’t see you,” he says desperately. 

“Down heeere,” Crowley hisses. 

Aziraphale looks down, and out slithers Crowley from between two pillars of salt, looking very pitiful for a snake—he’s about the size of a large garden snake, his normally glossy scales dull and dry looking. 

Aziraphale purses his lips and squats down to look at Crowley. “What on earth are you slithering about for?”

“Tiiired,” Crowley sighs. “Physsssicaally can't be human right now. Butttt I needed to ccchheck to sssssssee if we were alone.”

“Shall I carry you about then?” 

“Oh, thankssss,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale scoops Crowley up into his palm and gently drapes him around his neck as he straightens. “So this happened,” he says, surveying the ruins of the bookshelves. 

“Yesssssssssss.”

“I think I may have lost my temper a bit.”

“You thhhhhhhink?” Crowley hisses, tongue darting out at Aziraphale’s ear. 

“They were hurting you, my dear,” Aziraphale says dryly. “You were scared.”

“Wasssssssss _not_.”

“Well, _I_ was.” 

Crowley nudges his head up underneath Aziraphale’s chin, then settles at the soft bit of skin at Aziraphale’s clavicle, hissing softly. 

Aziraphale idly runs a knuckle against Crowley’s back, stroking him slowly as he begins to gingerly step over books and shattered lamps and broken shelves, circling around the tarry puddles of demon.

“Are you terribly hurt?” 

“I’ll be okay,” Crowley sighs. “Givvvve me a bit.” 

“I could heal you? Give you a little pep?” 

“No!” 

Crowley wiggles around his shoulders, ducking his head underneath Aziraphale’s ichor-spattered shirt. 

“Too much holiness?” 

“Too muchhhhh.” 

Aziraphale nods, still slowly running his finger from Crowley’s tail to where his head his hidden. He sighs slowly, shoulders slumping. “Good lord, that was…” 

“Intensssse?” 

“Actually, I was going to say terrifying as hell,” Aziraphale admits, slowly making his way up the squat flight of stairs to the flat above the shop. He gingerly untangles Crowley from his torso, noting that he’s grown a bit in size since being scooped from the floor.[29]

Aziraphale peels his shirt off of his body and picks up his softest, most comforting jumper and pulls it over his head. He shucks off his slacks and lies down beside Crowley, not bothering with redressing further. 

“Come here, love,” Aziraphale murmurs, pulling the quilt over his hips. Crowley slithers over the covers and curls up on Aziraphale’s chest, head resting against his neck. 

“Sssleep?” 

“For a while,” Aziraphale agrees. “Then… we try to figure out what the— _ahem_ … What happened.” 

“You got angry.” Crowley shifts upwards, resting his chin atop Aziraphale’s, yellow eyes wide. His tongue darts out and taps Aziraphale’s nose once, and then he slithers back down. “Aboutttt damn time.” 

“I disliked it immensely,” Aziraphale murmurs, “I’ve never liked losing my temper.” 

“‘Ssssssokay to.” 

“Not really, there are pillars of salt in the foyer now, and I’m not sure how to clean that up.” 

“A really big pretzzzel.” 

“Crowley.”

“Popcorn?” 

“Dear, no.”

“A hhhherd of deer?”

“Crowley!”

Crowley hisses with mirth and nudges his triangular head to Aziraphale’s clavicle. “Yessss, too messsssy.”

Aziraphale gently strokes Crowley’s serpentine form. “My dear, please,” he says with a sigh of a laugh. “I’m too exhausted to reprimand you.”

Crowley flips his tail and curls it around Aziraphale’s wrist, keeping his head settled against his neck, hissing in quiet contemplation. 

He’s not accustomed to sleep quite yet, and there’s too much racing through his mind to even try. So, Aziraphale closes his eyes, and lets himself sink into something like a trance—not quite sleeping, not quite awake. 

Armagedidn’t notwithstanding, it’s been ages since Aziraphale has properly astral projected. He’s never seen the point, really, not since the Arrangement came to be—he prefers being completely corporeal, thank you, and the Arrangement had cut his need to travel in half. And besides, dream portents were out of style, and no matter how Head Office insists otherwise, wayward telegrams with words of inspiration were far more effective than a dream. 

It comes easily, like his soul is eager to slip out of the flesh and bone temple it resides in. His essence aches, itches, crackles at the edges as he starts to separate it from the neurons and nerves it resides in; he’d forgotten how uncomfortable it was to inhabit a new corporation. Adam hadn’t _known_ that it would hurt, so it hadn’t when he’d been willed a new body, but this one is courtesy of Heaven, with all the aches and pains that are probably _not_ necessary, but are baked in as a reminder to use the body well.

He lets his consciousness bleed out from his limbs, spread throughout the room, and swirl into the air like smoke. It seeps outwards, trails out through the shop under the doors, through the gaps in windows, through keyholes and pipes and the post slot, then out, up, and through Soho. 

As it is, he leaves a bit of himself with his body, making sure it doesn't brush too closely against Crowley’s tattered and healing essence in order to not wake him or hurt him further. 

He stretches himself out and lets his soul go where it needs, testing the edges of his powers. He flits about Soho—tying a shoelace here, fixing a twisted backpack strap there; he holds a pedestrian back as someone runs a light. He pushes further, further, out farther than Soho, and finds himself above Hyde Park, blinking at a spread of chess pieces and playing cards, then he’s in Tyburn, spirit recoiling at the black aura that still stains the monument, more recent than before, and _oh_ Heaven and Hell _had_ been quite busy while he was lazing about, hadn’t it? 

The way has been paved, though, and his choice is to take it, see where it leads. He rises, feeling the ancient battle subside as he goes. 

He spreads across London, feeling no thinner about the edges than he had when he had first stepped from his body. He could probably manage to ease himself over the border of the M25, out to Tadfield to check on Adam. The idea resonates within him like a bell, a struck chord of purpose, and _huh_ , _that’s interesting_. He sets it aside, ignores the temptation, and settles himself over his beloved home.

He watches the city grow dark, smoothing out frayed edges of tempers and lives, tweaking small little things here and there that would make his people’s lives a little better, a little easier, a bit more amenable to choosing life and joy and peace. 

It comes so effortlessly, these small things. He barely has to nudge to suggest a young woman to reach out to her best friend when she’d otherwise hesitate, a small gesture that would grow into a swell of love that would spread like a wave. 

He tests the boundaries of his new powers and finds, with delight, he can help ease illness, pain, and even the darkness of grief without the limitations he’d had before, limitations he’d not thought of in ages. Flowers, where there were none. Phone calls in the late night, just when they’re needed the most. Tea just the right temperature to soothe hoarse throats and stuffy noses. 

And no one stops him. No notes, no angels ducking down into his space, no resonating voices in his ears. He’s free to do this as long as he likes. 

And, oh, he likes to. It’s been decades upon decades since he’s last truly been free to enjoy the things he can do, to put the spirit of inspiration into a young artist’s ear, to nudge radios into just the right song to make people laugh and dance, to watch the way people laugh and love and slip hands in hands and relish the world the Creator gave them without worry, without fear, without justification. 

This is what he’s _made_ for, after all, to love and protect, to shepherd the flock, to ease the peace and joy of the Lord to their world and guide. Not to scare them into obedience, not to fight, not to witness their end as a means to a war Heaven can’t promise they’ll win. 

He spends days up in the aether, ducking into the shop on occasion to check on Crowley, shooing away noisy groups of late-night partiers, or belligerent customers from the shopfront with gentle angelic nudgings, just so they won’t wake his beloved demon up.

When Crowley’s human-shaped once more, his skin a mottling of yellowing bruises and shining scales over patches of skin that had been burned away, Aziraphale lets his soul sink back into his body, his unused lungs expelling stale air as he comes fully back into himself. 

“Had a good walk?” Crowley mumbles against his neck, stretching his back just so. It cracks audibly and he gives a little sound of appreciation. He presses his face closer to Aziraphale’s skin, arm winding about his shoulder. 

“I didn’t realize you were awake,” Aziraphale whispers. “I’m sorry.” 

Crowley shakes his head and slings his leg over Aziraphale’s hip. Aziraphale laughs and pulls the quilt up around them, pressing his palm to Crowley’s back. 

“Could sense you, mucking about London doing _good_ ,” he mutters. “Making people _happy._ ” 

“How dare I, when I could be in here, making _you_ happy, right?” Aziraphale asks dryly, receiving a very wet raspberry to the neck in return. “Crowley! That’s disgusting!” 

Crowley snorts and rolls over onto his back, stretching his arms and legs out as far as he can, toes peeking out from under the quilt. 

“It’s far more fun to frustrate you,” he admits after yawning. “Bet I can make that little old lady you helped across the street cuss out her son-in-law.” 

“You will do no such thing!” Aziraphale admonishes, rolling to his side to watch Crowley.

He notes the way a lazy grin turns Crowley’s lips upward, pulling lines around his eyes, one still a bit bloodshot and surrounded by a very impressive, but fading, black eye. His wonderful nose is back to its usual hawkish profile, his sharp jaw softened a bit by the scruff of a beard that Aziraphale knows is absolutely _on purpose_ and it’s both frustrating and so impossibly endearing. 

“I’m here, you don’t need to look at me,” Crowley says, turning his head to meet Aziraphale’s gaze. “All the bits and pieces accounted for.” 

“Yes,” Aziraphale says slowly. He reaches out and gently skims his fingers against Crowley’s arm. “I… we… I almost… I lost myself,” he says, voice cracking, finally admitting what he’s been avoiding thinking about. “I almost lost myself, and it nearly cost me you.” 

“Nah,” Crowley says. His lips thin and he makes a low noise in the back of his throat. “I think you found the last little bit you needed.” 

“What makes you say that?” 

Crowley sits up and rubs his hands over his face, then through his hair, making it stand in wild bunches off of his scalp. “Need a drink for this one. Brunch?” 

“While I’d love it, I’m not sure we’re in any shape to…” 

Crowley claps his hands and scrubs his palms together. “Say no more.” 

He raises one hand in the air, then snaps, fingers shaped like a gun towards the ceiling. The air gives a tiny shake, atoms rearranging in a way that makes gooseflesh trail across Aziraphale’s neck like Crowley’s exhaled across his skin. 

The quilt smooths itself underneath them, and several trays ladened with food and pastries settle atop the bed, tucking themselves neatly into existence in such a way that they won’t ever turn over or be jostled. 

Another snap, and Crowley is no longer naked—a waste, Aziraphale finds himself thinking, but perhaps they’re not in the mimosas-in-the-nude stage of their relationship just yet.[30]Or Crowley doesn’t want to drip steaming lobster eggs benedict on his effort. [31] In either case, he’s in a pair of black silk pants and a button-down, looking indecently rumpled. 

“Are you showing off?” Aziraphale asks, watching as Crowley picks up a champagne flute and fills it with a scant half of orange juice. He catches the way the collar of the shirt Crowley’s miracled himself into gapes as the demon moves and swallows hard. “In _my_ shirt?” 

“Yes, yes, and no.” 

“I didn’t ask three quest… Crowley! You pay for this food this instant!” 

Crowley laughs and hands Aziraphale his orange juice. “Easy on the morality, angel, I’m _sensitive_ right now,” he leers, uncorking the champagne with a flick of his finger. He pours it with expert grace, without spilling a drop or letting the glass overflow. “And if you’re so concerned, I wiggled reality a bit so it will be billed to us like we were there.” 

“I get it, I get it, dear, you’re fine, tip top.” 

Crowley winks and pours himself a glass and leans back into the pillows. “Damn right,” he says, raising the glass in a mock toast. 

Aziraphale crosses his legs, sips his mimosa, and considers Crowley’s sudden return to acerbic temper, like it’s the years leading up to Armageddon all over again. 

Before, when Crowley was like this, all grandstanding swagger and wit, Aziraphale would let him go on, let him wind himself up until they got blindingly drunk and angry with each other. He’s never known quite what to say in the face of Crowley’s fear, when he’s his most serpent-like, wary and rattling loudly, hood expanded to full, showing off every bright, bright part of himself, screaming, _don’t try me, don’t come close!_

He takes another slow sip, watching the way Crowley’s leg bounces, the tightness in his jaw. 

He used to let Crowley simmer in it, wait it out. And sometimes, Aziraphale thinks, that’s what’s needed. But not right now. This needs to be nipped right in the bud of it, before Crowley strikes, his fangs and words wet with venom. 

“My dear,” Aziraphale says, turning towards Crowley. “What has you so frightened?” 

“I—I’m not _scared_ ,” Crowley says, scowling. “Don’t be, don’t be daft.” 

“Disturbed, then,” Aziraphale urges. He sets his drink on the nightstand and lays a hand on Crowley’s bare knee. “What did you mean when you said I found myself?” 

Crowley makes a noise low in the back of his throat. It sounds a bit like he’s going to be sick on his own words, so desperately swallowed back as they are. He tosses the whole glass of champagne back, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows it in one inhuman gulp. 

Aziraphale can’t even bring himself to be disgusted, because Crowley looks so wretched, his mouth twisting and bright yellow sclera swallowing up the whites of his eyes. He looks so wrenchingly fragile that Aziraphale aches with it, knows this look like his own face, because he’s seen it so often. This is Crowley, at his heart, at the very core of his soul. 

He is so very tired, and so very scared, and Aziraphale loves him for it. They’re both so used to ducking and running from this, that it scares them, but, oh… Aziraphale is tired of that, just as he knows that Crowley is tired of being scared. 

“Dearest,” he murmurs. “I’m here.” 

“But you weren’t! It, you were, you were _gone_ , and it was just… it was just, it was all _Her_ , _Her_ idea of what you should be, and, I…”

Crowley looks away, turns his head and crosses his arms, then shifts again, restless. “...I brought you back from that, from being a proper angel, terrible and awesome, touched by the Almighty. She was _with_ you in a way no one has been in centuries, and I took it back, even as She touched me through you. I took that away, because I wanted to be _me,_ and for you to be _you_. I didn’t want Her to move through you more than is strictly necessary. I didn’t want Her to touch me, all I want is…” 

He uncrosses his arms and laces his fingers together, pressing his face into the chapel of his fingers. 

“I play with choice every day,” he says. “That’s how I work, that’s my, it’s my _shtick_. Not just the flash and the wit and the car, but the _choice_. And I took that from you. What if that’s what you wanted? What if everything was just because you thought…That, if you weren’t a proper angel, then what was the difference, if you and I…” 

“It is all about the choosing,” Aziraphale muses, tracing the sharp curve of Crowley’s patella, then flattens his fingers to stroke through the curling hair on his shin. “That’s true, but, oh, my love… my dearest heart, _Crowley_ , I have done terrible things to your heart for you to still fear that I want to be like them. That I would take you as some… consolation prize for my failings.” 

He reaches out, gently curling his fingers around a slim wrist, thumb moving over the knobbly knuckles, his prominent ulna, gently pulling away Crowley’s hands from his beloved face. 

“I am so sorry, my darling heart,” he whispers. “I made you wait for far too long, I said awful things, I put my trust in those who would never repay it. It’s foolish for me to think it could be healed by these past few weeks, to think you would not be… affected by what’s happened, by the ways I denied you, how I failed to truly support you.” 

He holds Crowley’s hand between his own. “I swear it, my first choice is you. I am free to choose, and I have been given that as you once gave it. Deep within, it’s my duty, now, to choose. Do you remember Ingersoll?” 

“I’m not having the modesty conversation,” Crowley snaps.[32]

Aziraphale tips his head and gives a sly smile. He lifts Crowley’s hand to his mouth, kissing each knuckle. “Thank you,” he says. “For humanity won’t, and neither will Heaven. Thank you, Crowley, for giving me choice. For taking me from Eden, so that I can be free. You let me choose, let me take my time; you came back, time and time again. Choice is contagious, and now I am the first angel to truly, truly be free. So I will take up your duty with you, so that everyone can choose.” 

Crowley makes a quiet sound, turning his head away. “ _Nghk._ ”

“I love you, my dear, my darling demon, and while fear may have made me bold, it was not exile or the threat of falling that spurred my feelings or choices. And while we may fight in the future, or fail to see eye-to-eye, it hurt each other in ignorance—because, _oh_ , the ways we can hurt each other without knowing! Or intent!—I can’t think of a single moment where I would not love you. Even if we need time apart, I would love you, and I would miss you.”

“You talk too much,” Crowley manages, eyes searing yellow and face the color of his hair. 

“May I say one more thing?” 

“You’ll say it anyway,” Crowley grouses. 

Aziraphale laughs and nuzzles Crowley’s hand. “You quoted _Hamlet_ at me, to rebuke yourself, but, I have such a soft spot for the play. It persists in the mouths of men because of your favor to me, so let me say this, my celestial soul’s idol—” 

“Oh, angel, don’t,” Crowley groans in the same way he does when Aziraphale attempts a new card trick—exasperatedly fond. “Don’t you dare. Not that awful letter Polonius reads.” 

Aziraphale laughs, grin wicked. “The beautified Crowley.” 

“I believe you, you know!” Crowley says loudly. “Don’t talk about my bosom!” 

Aziraphale presses another kiss to Crowley’s hand. “But it’s an excellent bosom,” he laughs. “But truly, do you at least trust that I’m being honest with you?” 

“I do, I… It’s… For so long, I…” 

“Yes,” Aziraphale says gently. “I know, sweet heart of mine. Until the wounds ease, until the end of time, I will remind you, I will leave my heart with you as you left yours with me.”

Crowley snarls in the back of his throat, not in anger or warning, but in defense. Aziraphale can see the layers being stripped away, until Crowley’s dark and dangerous face is open and almost slack with something like shock. His lips twist, brows furrowing as his eyes dart towards Aziraphale, then away. 

“ _Please_ , angel, I’m begging, just eat your food and, and stop with the, the ridiculous pet names. I’m a demon, I’m not—just, look, there’s _crepes_.” 

“Yes, I did notice you summoned all my favorite brunch foods,” Aziraphale says, his smile dislodging another noise from Crowley. He’s as open and raw as he’d been on the sands in Namibia, heart and soul on display for Aziraphale to cup in his hands. “I do think the demon thing is a bit, well, I wonder about that. Philosophically. ” 

“Ah?” 

Aziraphale nestles himself up against Crowley’s side and begins to pull one food laden tray over their laps, nudging Crowley’s ankle with his toes, their bare thighs touching. He starts to serve himself, choosing to start on a very tempting plate of apple and cinnamon crepes. 

“Well,” he says, taking a bite as he looks at Crowley. “If I’m to lead the humans back to Eden, then knowledge isn’t a sin anymore.” 

“Arguably, it wasn’t the _knowledge_ that did them in,” Crowley huffs, pouring himself more champagne. “It was the _disobeying_. They also dabbled in a little lying. If they’d ignored me, perhaps your little plan involved them being _given_ the apple.” 

Aziraphale takes another bite, then shrugs. “That’s neither here nor there.” 

“Say that you’re right,” Crowley retorts, taking a deep draft of champagne. “That I am someone to be _thanked_ , that they were meant to eat the fruit, it doesn’t negate the fact that God let the door hit me on the way down.” 

“Mm, no, but you’ve had bodily contact with two direct avatars of the Almighty in as many days, and didn’t die. Also, I think you’re the first demon to have a guardian angel.” 

“I’m telling you, it’s rotten work, being with me.” 

Aziraphale takes a long drink of his mimosa, eyes shining with amusement. “You’re right, it’s terrible work,” he says. “Absolutely awful. I don’t know what I was thinking. Oh! I remember now.” 

Crowley snorts and tops off Aziraphale’s glass. “What, then, were you thinking?” 

“That I wouldn’t know how to be myself if you weren’t around, Crowley. It’s not just because I’m _in_ love with you, but because I love you: You’re my best friend, you make me laugh, make me think, make me _try_ things instead of just letting myself become stagnant. You make me want to be better, always,” Aziraphale says softly, placing his champagne aside. 

“And that I need you always, because here,” he whispers, pressing gentle fingers to Crowley’s chest, “We match. What I’m missing, you have. You’ve always been a little good, deep down, in the ways I never have been.” 

“And you’ve always been a bastard,” Crowley chokes out. He reaches for Aziraphale, and with a wave of Aziraphale’s hand, the food is gone, tucked neatly into the ancient refrigerator downstairs. “A terrible, wonderful, moronic, clever bastard. And sometimes I loved you so much I hated you.” 

“I envied you so much I was ablaze with it,” Aziraphale says, catching Crowley’s hand. He holds it tightly, then presses Crowley’s rough palm to his cheek. “I think we’re evenly matched, there too.” 

Crowley surges forward, and their mouths crash together. Their teeth collide and their noses get in the way, but then Aziraphale rocks forward and their foreheads come together, lips just barely brushing. They both gasp, and then they’re kissing again in earnest, with Crowley climbing up into Aziraphale’s lap, with grasping hands and urgent voices. 

“I was thinking,” Crowley manages some time later, between searing kisses. “ _London_.” 

Aziraphale kisses him, softening the sound of his voice. “London?” he asks, barely moving back. His fingers trace over Crowley’s ribs, each valley between bones the perfect space for his fingertips. He shifts his legs, hitching Crowley up higher in his lap, and Crowley gasps, fingers tight in blond hair. 

“ _Oh,_ I, it’s,” he gasps. “Used to be a bit smaller, is all, _hey_! That’s—”

“That was ages ago,” Aziraphale says, sounding a bit dazed, his hands now on Crowley’s rear. He licks his lips, his eyes following the movement of Crowley’s mouth as he makes a small murmuring of a reply. “When it’s big, makes it easier to do the whole, the whole, mmm, the… ah, the whole business.”

“We don’t have to live here to do it,” Crowley offers, voice cracking as Aziraphale runs a hand up his back, stroking the soft, sensitive patch of new scales along his spine. 

Aziraphale tips his head, and reaches up to run his fingers through Crowley’s hair. “What’s on your mind, pet?” 

Groaning, Crowley abandons his current train of thought for Aziraphale’s mouth. 

Aziraphale’s lips curl against his own and Crowley can’t believe how much that undoes him, because he already feels like he’s been taken apart to his very bones, piece by piece, laid out for Aziraphale to scrutinize. His entire being, every cell in his body, each atom of his soul sings out a cry of overwhelming need and love, setting into its melody like he’d never had this voice ripped from him. 

He soars on the high of Aziraphale’s lips, the hot stroke of his tongue over his teeth, against the roof of his mouth; the way Aziraphale will pull back just slightly, catching his lower lip between his. He shakes, trembling as Aziraphale’s hands slide over him, stroking slowly, holding him with reverence, and then when Crowley thinks he can manage coherence, Aziraphale will grope him, hauling him closer. 

It’s too much, but not enough. His toes press onto the sheets, his knees to either side of Aziraphale, and he can’t think, can’t breathe, can barely focus the locus of his soul to this one point in space. 

He draws back with a broken half-gasp, hiding his face against Aziraphale’s warm neck, his fingers curling tight into the worn fabric of Aziraphale’s jumper. 

“It’sss just… we, _ah_ , we can’t see the ssstarsss here,” Crowley mumbles against Aziraphale’s skin. “I want to… I want to ssssse the sstarss—”

“My dear, is that a _euphemism_ now?” Aziraphale chuckles, sliding his hand down Crowley’s stomach. 

“No! Yes! Maybe,” Crowley groans. “Both, but, I want, I want to walk outside, _oh!_ And see them—”

Aziraphale noses Crowley’s temple gently, fingers playing with the silk and elastic of Crowley’s pants. “One day,” he says gently, and it’s so easy to slip his hand against Crowley’s skin and listen to him groan. “Hands to yourself, dearest, keep yourself here, in your body. With me.” 

As if that isn’t the hardest thing for Crowley to do. But he holds on tight, keeps himself from splintering into a thousand pieces against Aziraphale, shakes with the effort of not burrowing his being into the places Aziraphale has reserved just for him, keeps his wings in, knowing he can’t withstand any more holiness without severe consequences. 

“One day, love,” Aziraphale whispers. “It won’t just be dinner at the Ritz or a picnic, it will be that, and stars, and stars and sunrises, maybe a garden, a cottage with a hearth, pots and pans and books. Is that what you like? Is that what you need? I’ll give you everything you ever need, in time, in time, today, today, though, love, what do you need? What do you want?” 

Crowley can’t answer, he can only feel, and yet Aziraphale knows him well enough to adjust his hand, to lean back so Crowley tips forward, just as if Crowley had asked. 

He keeps himself grounded in the salt taste of Aziraphale’s neck, the tick of the angels’ carotid against his mouth, the murmur of his breath in his ear, the heat of his hand, the string of tight pleasure in his gut, over and over. He gives himself to his mortal form, and lets Aziraphale show him in that so distinctly human way, that they can make their own stars. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 29 Aziraphale wonders how much of Crowley’s manifested size is a result of his exhaustion, and now much of it is because Crowley just wanted to slither under his shirt. [return to text]
> 
> 30 They could be, if Crowley didn’t think he’d get chewed out for drinking mimosas in the nude while Aziraphale eats. [return to text]
> 
> 31 That, too. [return to text]
> 
> 32 https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/171544194656/laveyinthehouse-if-the-account-given-in[return to text]


	16. South London Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three angels and a demon talk themselves in theological circles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaaaand all that's left is the epilogue! So look out for that in the next few days!  
> Chapter title from Florence + the Machine, South London Forever

They laze about, stretch in the rumpled sheets, enjoying the feeling of simply existing together.

Lips on lips, skin on skin, hands wound with hands, hair mussed, teeth clacking. There’s champagne, and more and more, until they giggle themself stupid and hiccuping. Then they sober up, just for Aziraphale to gently feed Crowley bits of cinnamon crusted apples from the food he’d summoned up from the kitchen.

Aziraphale lets the window slide open, and a mild breeze stirs the pages of books, wayward strands of copper hair, carrying their laughter back as an echo of the sounds of life that trickle through from Soho below.

“I suppose we must… venture downstairs,” Aziraphale sighs sometime late in the afternoon, Crowley’s hair tickling his nose as he speaks. He turns his head further, pressing a kiss to the crown of his demon’s head, eyes closed and stomach jumping at the simple feeling of Crowley’s long fingers toying with the ring on his pinky.

“Eventually, yeah.”

Crowley idly rubs his thumbs against Aziraphale’s palm, then raises the angel’s hand to his mouth. “Don’t have to until you want to,” he mumbles.

Aziraphale nestles himself a bit closer to Crowley, keeping his nose and mouth pressed to Crowley’s hair. Crowley leans into him, his elbow against his pulled-in knees, chin leaning into Aziraphale’s knuckles as he lets his head rest against their intertwined fingers.

“I’d like to get it over with,” Aziraphale says into Crowley’s hair. It should be thoroughly disgusting to get a mouthful of it as he speaks, but he’s so languidly happy that it’s a passing bother.

What’s better is the warmth of him, the smell of his skin, the way Crowley’s sharp shoulder digs into his bicep, the way they curl into each small breath, entwining themselves as close as their physical forms will allow. “I perish to think of what those salt pillars will do to the floorboards, and I would like to go out on a nice date soon. And truthfully, I’d like to make cocoa for us.”

Crowley gives a lazy hum, shifting until he’s laid himself out across Aziraphale’s lap, face tucked against the warm skin of Aziraphale’s thigh. “Mmm, maybe,” he murmurs.

Aziraphale smiles indulgently down at Crowley, running his hand against the curve of Crowley’s spine, fingers pressing against the knobbly bits of his vertebrae, then between his shoulder blades. He lets his fingers sink between the planes of reality, fingers sliding into the soft downy feathers where cool scaled skin meets the root of his wings.

“We could turn on the telly,” he offers as Crowley arches his back like a contented cat. “Or put on some music. Anything you want, dearest. Anything at all,” he continues, voice cracking with its earnestness.

Crowley’s wings flutter against Aziraphale’s fingers, once, twice, and then Crowley rolls, face-up. He makes a face, brows twisted as if he were in pain despite the smile on his mouth. “You know what I want,” he says hoarsely, undone by it all, by the love burning him up from within.

Aziraphale’s heart twists, love and fondness overwhelming him to the point he feels like his body is too small for the waves of it that crash into him, filling his soul, reaching in until there’s no place left of him that doesn’t bear Crowley’s fiery fingerprints.

“That could be any number of things,” Aziraphale teases, his voice gentle. “New shades, a drive around town, to terrorize a gang of university students who blocked the Tube entrance. Alcohol, lots of it. A new fern. Artwork. Me.”

Crowley croaks out a stammering noise, then turns his head away from Aziraphale’s gaze, his nose pressed against the hem of Aziraphale’s jumper. “You forgot new clothes,” he hisses.

“Oh, silly me,” Aziraphale muses, fingers curling against the nape of Crowley’s neck. “How could I?”

“Yeah, how could you?” Crowley retorts.

“You vain, petulant thing,” Aziraphale sighs, turning the words into something soft, an endearment wrapped in words that are a comfort to Crowley, to the side of him so unused to unabashed adoration.

Crowley looks up at him, blinking slowly, irises bleeding yellow-gold as that soft secret smile softens his face. “That’s me,” he says smugly and Aziraphale can only laugh.

Crowley sits up, slinging an arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders. “Forget all this _nice_ shit, I’m vain, petulant, disreputable, incorrigible,” he says, pressing their foreheads together. “All those. You _finally_ get it. Took you long enough!”

In any other time, in any other place, it would be self-depreciating, a list of things that Crowley would shoot off about to convince himself that he didn’t _deserve_ this, this piece of a happy ending, this wonderful love. But now, he takes them and reclaims them, a list of traits that make him who he is, who make him the creature that Aziraphale adores and has chosen, now, at the end of the world, and at the beginning of it, too.

Because Aziraphale is vain and petulant too, and often incorrigible to the point of being disreputable.

Aziraphale brushes a soft kiss to the corner of Crowley’s crooked grin, nuzzling their noses together. “Then shall we get to work on all those things you want, dear?”

“How about we focus on the shop and maybe dinner?” Crowley asks, sliding from the bed. He holds out his hands, and Aziraphale takes them. “Keep all our options open. We’ve got all the time we want for the others.”

They stand, hand in hand, grinning at each other with barely contained glee. Crowley tugs them forward, one hand on Aziraphale’s waist. He raises a hand and snaps his fingers, and miracles clothes for them both—black denim and a v-neck for himself, soft slacks and a button down for Aziraphale, complete with a tartan vest. [33]

Somewhere below the flat, music lifts up over the noise of Soho and threads through the room. It could be a miracle from Crowley, it could be Aziraphale’s own wish for a bit more closeness, or something else entirely, but it’s too lovely to question, too wonderful and soft and new.

Crowley takes Aziraphale’s hand in his own and nudges him gently, turning them in place slowly. It’s not the gavotte he knows the angel is so fond of, and it’s not a waltz either, but a slow sway that starts off to the melody below and melts into something softer, just bodies resting against bodies, hands clasped in hands.

“The choice is ours. We’re free now,” Aziraphale murmurs, his fingers tight in Crowley’s. “Maybe we always have been, without knowing—”

“Best not speculate,” Crowley quips. He winks in that dashing way of his, with a curl of his lip and a jut of his chin, like the term roguish was made for him and him alone.

Aziraphale scoffs and spins them slowly. “Hush, you. The point is that we can do whatever we like. No matter how fast or slow we go. I’ll have you as long as you’ll have me.”

“You know how long that will be, angel,” Crowley says. “Until the end.”

“Well, there may be several of those,” Aziraphale laughs. “If we keep on our toes.”

Crowley takes the lead back and dips Aziraphale without ceremony or warning, his grin fierce and toothy. “Until we are no more but stardust again.”

“Perhaps we’ll become a nebula,” Aziraphale muses, arms looped around Crowley’s neck as they straighten. “I’ve become quite fond of nebulae.”

Crowley laughs and steps backwards. “C’mon, angel. We can’t be soppy all afternoon. Dinner is waiting.”

“The Ritz?” Aziraphale asks, hands still in Crowley’s as they walk together down the hall, Crowley taking confident steps backwards, pulling Aziraphale forward.

“How about your sushi place? I’ve never been.”

Aziraphale beams, feeling the way his cheeks ache from smiling with such joy all morning, and he embraces it, loves it. Loves the way Crowley is probably using his powers to keep from stumbling down the stairs as he takes them backwards, how thin and cool Crowley’s fingers are against his own, the way his throat moves as he speaks, how Crowley fills up the room with his lanky form and thin shoulders and loose gait.

He would do anything to protect him, to keep him joyous always, to soothe the hurts left by Heaven and Hell and his own misguided attempts to keep him safe. Anything at all.

And as the shop comes into view, Aziraphale realizes he already has. Truthfully, his memory of the entire ordeal is a fuzz of pain and terror and anger. He knows that he’s already _seen_ this wreckage, but it’s still new to him.

Crowley finally releases his hands and they stand, shoulder-to-shoulder from the back door of the shop. He whistles slowly, shaking his head.

“Angel, remind me to never piss you off,” he mutters.

“That isn’t funny,” Aziraphale complains. “Twice now this poor shop has suffered the indignities of Heaven.”

“The first one was a spooked washed-out witchfinder, actually.”

“Mm, well, if we’re being technical, I suppose,” Aziraphale drawls, shaking his head. “Goodness me, I’m not sure I can do all of this alone without discorporating myself.”

Crowley looks over at Aziraphale and groans. “Zira, angel, you insufferable creature, you already know I’ll do it, don’t do the pout.”

Aziraphale’s answering grin manages to be both tender and mischievous. “Oh?”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Don’t _oh_ me. It’s been obvious for centuries.”

Aziraphale laughs softly, “It is a bit of a tab I’ve got, isn’t it?”

Crowley snorts dismissively, the tip of his jaw and shrug of one shoulder saying what he doesn’t need to: _don’t worry, I didn’t do it to get it back._ He dusts his hands on his hips, taking a small step forward into the shop proper.

“Together, then?” Crowley asks. He turns slightly, looking at Aziraphale with barely concealed affection and expectation as he holds out his hand.

“Together, yes,” Aziraphale agrees, winding their fingers together. “Always, you know.”

He lifts Aziraphale’s knuckles to his mouth. “On three, then,” he whispers.

Aziraphale grips him tightly, his eyes closing as the air around them begins to crackle.

Holy energy dances across his skin, tiny pinpricks of heat against his skin, and he closes his eyes, casting his power out like a net around them, careful to not brush it too closely to the ice-cold sparks of power Crowley throws out about the shop at the same time.

“One,” Aziraphale says.

“Two,” Crowley answers.

“Three,” they say in unison, and the air sucks inward. It holds, a black hole of energy between them, atoms bouncing back and forth as their power corrals them, sets them back in alignment—this one here, that there, this potential energy goes to this action, this reaction causes this action, spilling back and forth until the balance is equal, a microcosm of a universe made between their fingers.

And then it bursts from them, out, out, around. It settles back into the universe, ripples of excess energy resetting parking meters and making mobile calls drop mid-conversation. Like that, the pillars, the golden-rust sludge, the soot and shattered glass are gone; the shelves are righted, their books tucked neatly into place. The small plants have been returned to their pots, and the black-brown smearing of Crowley’s blood is gone from the floor and shelves. [34]

“Ah, there we are,” Aziraphale murmurs. “Tickety-boo.”

“Angel, for someone’s sake,” Crowley grumbles half-heartedly.

Their hands slide apart naturally, with Crowley tucking his into his pockets as Aziraphale starts shuffling the books around on the shelves, doing some sort of reorganizing and inventory that Crowley can’t make sense of.

“Do you ever wonder if we’ll ever just… run out of miraculous escapes?” Crowley asks, following behind Aziraphale.

“Well, I’m sure we will,” Aziraphale says easily. “That’s just the nature of things. I was sure that this time, my luck had surely run out. That everything I’ve… Well. We aren’t quite model versions of our respective employers.”

“Too human, we are,” Crowley agrees. He picks up a pot of violets and moves them, giving the pot a flick of his finger. “Perk up, you sorry excuse for foliage.”

“Dearest…” Aziraphale sighs, pulling a series of encyclopedias down into his arms. “You’ll make them drop their poor leaves. They’re _shy_.”

“Stupid violets,” Crowley snorts derisively. He fusses with the placing of the pot before holding his arms out wordlessly, allowing Aziraphale to pile books into them.

“I would say _human_ isn’t exactly it, not really,” Aziraphale continues.

“Ah, good old incompetence, then?”

Aziraphale casts his eyes upwards. “Is it truly incompetence if it’s worked out in a way that seems like it’s part of the Plan?”

“Yes,” Crowley says promptly. “You’re who called us incompetent, there’s no take-backs on that.”

“It’s just,” Aziraphale murmurs, trailing a finger against a velvet-bound book; “I’ve begun to wonder why…”

“Join the party,” Crowley sighs.

Aziraphale sighs and slides the book aside, taking the first of the set of encyclopedias from Crowley’s arms. Each movement is clipped, restrained, barely shaking fingers belying the tension underneath. “That’s just _it_ , isn’t it?”

“Ah,” Crowley breathes. “So you do know, then. I thought, maybe… you’d misunderstood, then, but you’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you, angel?”

Aziraphale shrugs, counting books on the top shelf as he tries to collect his thoughts. “I don’t see how… why don’t you hate me? By all accounts, I should have Fallen, truly. Yet, here I am, and there you are… And I can’t fathom how you came to love me. I think I would have hated you if our positions were reversed.”

“On occasion, I did, I said as much,” Crowley says. He shifts the books in his arms and leans up against the bookshelf. “But. It’s not _you_ who made me Fall, Aziraphale.”

“No, I suppose, but, it’s… You wanted me to figure it out,” Aziraphale says. “I want to understand you better, to know. I want to be a better friend to you, Crowley.”

Crowley laughs loudly, the sound of it sharp and echoing against the shelves. His eyes crinkle and his brows are pushed up, up, the grin on his face both incredulous and mocking. “You’re already my best friend,” he says, earnest and open, eyes bright. “What more do you want? Greedy bastard.”

Aziraphale takes a book and gently taps the spine of it to Crowley’s chest. “As much as you will give me, past and present and future. What were you thinking, on the wall? In the garden? In the Flood? At Golgotha? How did I not sicken you, because… Crowley, it makes me ill to think of how I could be. I was cowardly, blind, prone to inaction…”

“You weren’t as terrible as you think you were,” Crowley says softly. “Heaven is… the way it is. Always has been. You had your moments where you were… Heavenly, yeah, but you were always a bit different, angel. Maybe because you met Adam and Eve, maybe because you had a platoon in the Rebellion, but you… You always saw things as they were, creatures made by God, and treated them as such. You turned your eyes from me, yes, because I was a demon. But also because you walked the world as I did, and you saw me when you looked. It wasn’t the demon you turned your eyes away from, but what from what it meant to see me.”

“The children,” Aziraphale says quietly. “The first time I _saw_ you.”

“Oh, hiding the brats from Noah?”

“I saw you and wept,” Aziraphale says. “Heaven would let them die, would punish me if I whispered doubts, but you were free from it all, should have delighted in the death and destruction, of the wrath of a cruel god, and… you were curled up with the sheep and the goats, wings covering as many children as you could find, and… I had to stop myself, I had to stop myself from sinking to the bottom of that ocean in shame.”

“I was doing it as a big piss off to Her,” Crowley sighs, leaning his head back up against a shelf. “ Kids, dammit, their parents’ so-called sin isn’t their fault, they weren’t old enough to know good and evil from horsepiss. I got angry, because there She went again, deciding that good wasn’t good enough.”

“So you’re saying that you think the world She made is good,” Aziraphale says slyly.

“ _Oi_. Your point?”

“My point is your point,” Aziraphale says. He takes the last encyclopedia from Crowley and wiggles it into place, running his fingers against their worn spines. “Which was, I’m assuming, that my faith in the Ineffable Plan and love for all Her creatures has always been enough to keep my incompetence as an, in capitals, Agent of Heaven, from causing me to Fall.”

“Right,” Crowley says, craning his head until his chin points up towards the ceiling. “When you asked me, and well… Between all the Armageddon whatnot and going up to Heaven for you, it made me think about things I’d not thought about in ages. Up there, I never thought much of the plans, didn’t care for the ineffable. I made things and loved things because I _liked_ them. I liked annoying the archangels and making Her find a place for chimerical colors. I like making people irritated, I like causing mischief and mayhem. I like the way my plants grow, the stars shine, the way alcohol tastes, the music and cars and clothes. I don’t give a shit what it all means, not really, or where it all goes, or _why._ I liked the stars too much to be properly angelic.”

He shifts, pushing himself up off the shelf and prowling between the winding cases, Aziraphale following behind with his hands tucked behind his back.

“But you, angel, you doubted and wondered, hemmed and hawed, but always settled yourself with the idea of a plan. You love _God_ , not Heaven, and you think this all has a place in that love. If you fell, you fell because there would be a _reason_. You think _I_ fell for a reason, a purpose, some grand destiny that wasn’t because of a petty absentee mother of a god. If I’m being presumptuous, I’d wager that you would say I fell so that I could meet you, change you. Do you think that, Aziraphale?”

He turns, holds out a hand. Aziraphale lays his fingers against Crowley’s palm, thin fingers curling against his wrist. Aziraphale grips his wrist as well, nodding softly, his lips parting.

_Yes,_ he wants to say, _yes, always, I’ve always thanked the Lord that it was you beside me, always, forever, I have cried out to Her in longing, in anger, in gratitude, that it was you._

“Is there still a plan for us, then, angel? Is there still a place in Heaven set aside for you now? Do you want it? Is there a place for the sons and daughters of Eve? For even the worst of them?”

“Yes, yes, Crowley. I _have_ to believe that there is a plan, I must, and that is the crux of my soul,” Aziraphale says, reaching out to hold Crowley’s other arm by the elbow. “There are places for those who ask, and only God knows who will ask. As for us, my dear, I want for no place but one by your side, and for no plan but the one but the one I see set ahead for us.”

“What do you see, then?”

“I’m no Agnes Nutter,” Aziraphale says. “But my plan, and perhaps yours, and perhaps even God’s, is you. You and I, we’ve seen empires rise and fall. We have seen rivers crest and dry and turn to oceans. Even now, the plates of Africa pull apart, birthing an ocean that one day, we’ll swim in, and I will get sunburned, and you will draw patterns into my skin, laughing the way you do when you’re fond but angry. There will be food and wine beyond imagination, gadgets for you and new books for me, new plays and clothes. There will be authors and musicians and artists that we will love, and they will die, and we will grieve. Maybe one day, we won’t recognize the world but for ourselves; the oceans will rise and no one but us will remember snow and ice. Then this world will end, but we won’t, not if you don’t want us to.”

Crowley is silent for a long moment, and it hangs between them like spun glass, like dew on a spiderweb. Trembling and crystalline and fragile.

“Doesn’t answer _why_ , though,” he says finally, without heat or bitterness, just a soft supplication. “Why play it like this; why let you wiggle through loopholes; why let us get away with it?”

“I think I may know why,” Aziraphale says slowly, “Perhaps, and this is only my conjecture, you understand… But I think that perhaps, there is a limit to the amount of meddling God can really do, just like there’s only so much _we_ can do, as agents of the great powers of the world. You could _make_ anyone do anything you want; I could, too. We could put ideas into heads that become action, but we choose not to—because there’s a limit to what we can, and what we’re willing to control.”

“So you’re saying that God… can’t?”

“Not at all! All things are possible through God, obviously,”[35] Aziraphale says as he runs a hand over a glass case, tapping his nails against its surface in thought. “It’s more of a… Well, why don’t you just _make_ people sin?”

“‘S’not worth it, really. It doesn’t mean anything if I _make_ them,” Crowley says, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

“Right,” Aziraphale says, grinning. “It’s a bit like my... well maybe more like the opposite of my magic tricks—”

“No, I’m stopping you there, angel—”

“Okay, then, what is it like?”

Crowley slaps his palm against the case. “Poker! If God has it all figured out, why’s She still playing? If all this was in the cards, why didn’t She set them right to begin with, why didn’t She just _say_? Why test them—test us? If She’s counting cards, then there’s got to be a more effective system for playing.”

“Except it’s every card in the universe, Crowley, and there’s no way we can even begin to understand the rules at all,” Aziraphale retorts. “I don’t know if counting cards is even _accurate_. I think the numbers don’t come up until you pick a card. Then, for a second, it comes together until the next card is chosen. Because, you see, it’s about _choosing_. That’s why the plan is utterly ineffable.”

He adjusts a stack of old atlases atop a side table, keeping them from tipping over across the floor as Crowley sits himself upon the table.

“There’s a limit to how much sentience a creature can hold, save for God,” Aziraphale continues. “And as the world goes on, gathers steam, I believe it must become harder for God to walk among us and directly assert Her influence. All those choices at once, all those thoughts and prayers and souls that slip away from Her… there is a limit, I suppose, when it becomes too painful to keep from saving them, to uphold the choice Eve—and Adam too, both of them, now—made so long ago.”

“So She must retreat from the world, to hold it all at once. She hurts, too, Crowley. We know this as a fact, that She angers and mourns, and those are emotions born from deep connections and passions. Love is more meaningful if it’s freely given, as is loyalty and truth, so God keeps dealing the cards.”

“I suppose,” Crowley muses, sounding doubtful. “But that doesn’t explain people like Nutter. If _She_ can’t hold it all at once, can’t tell us _Her_ plans, then how do the witches and seers and those with divine dreams work into the game?”

“True prophecies like that are whispered into the ears of those who listen,” Aziraphale says with a shrug. “Typically by angels. On occasion, demons. I would say Satan’s knowledge of the world and the plan is…passingly accurate, to an extent. He was the highest of the angels, after all. At any given day, a human with the right mind, the right knowledge, the right attunement of atoms can manage to grasp a piece of truth from the celestial static leftover from Creation. That young witch, Anathema, is fairly skilled at it. If she chooses to practice, she could probably become an Agnes in her own right.”

“I’m going to ask because I know you well enough to know you want to answer,” Crowley says. “How come Michael and Gabriel didn’t know? About Nutter or any of this?”

Aziraphale traces a gentle finger down the spine of a worn copy of Nostradamus’ predictions.

“Well, you said it as much at the airfield. They didn’t know. There was a bigger plan than the Great Plan, and we simply… didn’t know. If they weren’t sent to Agnes, there’s no way they could,” he says simply. “I doubt God would ever say _who_ got sent. Perhaps it was one of the two Archangels who stayed behind.”

“Raphael? Maybe,” Crowley says, nose wrinkling as he sniffs in disdain. “She’s a bit… After the Rebellion, she... went sideways on the promotion ladder. Went a little odd.”

Aziraphale’s brow furrows in thought. “Yes, I remember now, Raphael began to heal humans behind Gabriel and Michael’s backs. I stayed well away from it, honestly. Gabriel was in a frightful temper, refused to appear human for years, scared all those shepherds witless. Yes. Then it would be her, most likely, that would deliver any secret knowledge from God.”

There’s a small pop, a displacement of air and matter that’s accompanied with the familiar sound of metal against china, of a tea kettle whistling, followed by the smell of tea and scones and lavender.

“You see, my dear? They _get_ it.”

“Yes, yes. I never did say they _didn’t_.”

Aziraphale and Crowley start violently, books clattering to the floor as they spin towards the rotunda of the shop, where a table and two angels have appeared suddenly. Crowley throws a protective arm out across Aziraphale’s chest, while Aziraphale snatches up the nearby hat stand, wielding it like a bat. Golden flames begin to drip down his fingers, setting the wood ablaze like his former sword.

Zadkiel and Raphael barely even pause in their tea: They sit, unperturbed, side by side at a small table that’s covered with what looks like several full tea services—tiered trays, teapots upon teapots, covered dishes, cups and flowers set upon a white linen table cloth with intricate embroidery that depicts what seems to be the Garden of Eden.

There are two empty place settings.

“Excuse me,” Aziraphale says, clearing his throat. He tightens his fingers around the hat stand, and Crowley pushes his arm against his chest, holding him back.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” Crowley snaps. “Other than eavesdropping and tresspassing.”

Raphael dabs at her lips with a napkin. “We’ve scared them, Zadkiel, dear.”

“We’ve been here the whole time,” Zadkiel supplies, pouring Raphael a cup of tea. “Waiting for you to notice us. You’re not very observant, the two of you.”

“Don’t sound so glum; they’ll think we have bad news,” Raphael admonishes. “Come, sit. Break fast with us. We have cucumber sandwiches!”

Aziraphale looks to Crowley, who shakes his head when Aziraphale’s eyes dart down to the hat stand in his hands.

“News first,” Crowley snaps, fingers pressing against Aziraphale’s. “Tell us why the flying Hell you’ve shown up. Hasn’t your lot put us through enough?”

“Oh, dear,” Raphael laughs. “You truly haven’t changed a bit. Crowley is it now? Shall you be asking why cucumbers next? Well, I like them, you see—they’re crunchy. Or perhaps it’s, ‘is it truly you’? That’s quite understandable. Would any of your former compatriots be this patient with you? Would they pretend to eat, just to throw you off? Come, now, child. You know me.”

Crowley’s hand shakes against Aziraphale’s chest, then falls. He steps forward and flops into one of the empty chairs, leaning it back onto two legs, looking dangerously close to flipping it over in his display of nonchalance.

“Uh, Crowley…”

“It’s really them,” Crowley sighs. “No one else but you can natter on like this. Come before she decides to start waxing poetic on the nurturing properties of cucumbers. Oh, angel, do put down the stand.”

Aziraphale scowls and slowly sets down the hat rack, extinguishing the flames with a flick of his fingers. He wrings his hands together, shifting towards Crowley.

“They’re low in calories, actually,” Raphael says. “But good for hydrating. Not great for healing. Aloe vera, though! You have one here, upstairs. It’s wonderful. I took a peek! Just at the plant, not at you two. Why are you scolding it for blooming? If you harvest it now, it will be wonderful for sunburn.”

“Oh, shut up,” Crowley complains, “You’re scaring him, you crazy old bird.”

Aziraphale hovers behind Crowley, hands twisting together. Zadkiel and Raphael remind him of someone, somehow, but he can’t place who.

They look so human… The day before, they’d been in the precisely tailored clothes of Heaven, neat lines and silken pinstripes and harsh lapels. Today, they look like any other human on the street. They act like it, too, with fluid movements and little physical tics like blinking and breathing at the right moments that only a being comfortable with their corporation would be able to manage.

Oh, perhaps, if one looked, one would notice that Raphael’s makeup never creased or smudged, or the auburn spill of her hair never frizzed or fell out of place despite how she occasionally reaches up to brush it back, but Aziraphale has never seen an angel in _jeans_ , no matter how well kept they are or how nicely they’re paired with a silk and lace blouse. He would have thought her some well-off human woman, wouldn’t even look twice if he saw her on the street.

Likewise, he would have never guessed that the quiet man beside her in the dark violet jumper over a button up and slacks is the angel of mercy himself. Zadkiel is more restrained, but not in the way that Michael is when she’s on earth; he’s softer around the edges, certainly, casting a quite forgettable aura about himself. His dark hair is swept back in the style of the younger men, a loose knot at the back of his neck, his movements just as comfortable as Raphael’s as he pours cream into his teacup. Aziraphale watches as he takes a sip, grimaces, and proceeds to plop three more sugar cubes into his cup.

He can’t even see their angel marks at first. It takes a long moment of scrutiny to find them, a small earring shaped like a trumpet dangling from Raphael’s ear, and then, on Zadkiel’s collar, embroidered like a logo, a small dagger.

There’s something in their energy that feels like they’re kindred spirits. He recalls Raphael’s pained face and the way Zadkiel had responded to her pain and Aziraphale’s plea. How they stayed behind, managing to escape Aziraphale’s desire to rid the shop of those who would hurt himself and Crowley.

“So… You eat?” he asks, laying a hand on Crowley’s shoulder, hovering protectively behind him. “I was under the impression that the Archangels were… above that.”

Zadkiel laughs, and the sound is bright, joyful. Raphael turns to him and chuckles as well, shaking her head.

“Oh, Angel Aziraphale, you must know there are others in Heaven like you,” she says fondly. “The entire Host is not Gabriel or the others.”

“Rafe, start from the beginning; your old pupil may decide to eat us if you startle his angel like that,” Zadkiel chides, his hand covering Raphael’s as he glances pointedly at Crowley’s bared teeth. He slips his thumb beneath her palm, a small tender gesture that speaks volumes. “Remember, it was a bit hectic the last time we were here.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathes, fingers tightening around Crowley’s shoulders even as Crowley sits upright in his chair. How could he not see it? Between them, it shines as bright as stars, the endless feedback of two creatures of divinity that are completely devoted to each other.

Is that what _they_ see when they look at him and Crowley? Oh, it’s beautiful and brilliant and he hopes, he hopes they do.

“Oh, I see now, yes.”

Raphael nods with a small smile, gesturing towards the empty chair. “Please?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Aziraphale murmurs. He sits, pulling himself up to the table. Without a word, Crowley begins fussing with the teapots, opening and closing one after another, looking for something to occupy his anxious hands.

“We’re terribly sorry about the fuss yesterday,” Zadkiel says, his voice a low murmur. “When we were summoned by the Almighty to intervene, we weren’t told it… it would be like that.”

“Hold on,” Crowley says, slamming the lid down so hard it cracks under his palm. Aziraphale gives a small murmur of surprise, laying his hand over Crowley’s, keeping it flat as Crowley tries to grasp the sharp edges. “You _knew_? You were _told?_ The-the bloody _Almighty_ just what, summoned you for _tea,_ ” he snarls, “and what? Tells you, oh, oh a group of angels will try to _gut_ another angel, then toss him right to Satan for the rest of the slaughter? And you _stood there?_ ”

“Not the way you think,” Raphael says. “We knew there was an angel who was to be evaluated by the Stronghold, but not that… Not that it would be so awful. It was foolish to expect…”

“Foolish isn’t the word I would use,” Aziraphale says sharply. Aziraphale pulls Crowley’s hand into his lap, swiping a thumb against the places where splintered china has pierced his skin. Gold shimmers up the dark veins on Crowley’s arms, disappearing underneath his cuffed sleeves. “Foolish implies you didn’t know better. Ignorant, is what I would say it was: willful ignorance.”

“Angel,” Crowley whispers in warning.

“Ah. Sorry, dear,” Aziraphale says absently. His eyes are locked on Raphael’s, mouth turned into a contemplative frown.

“I once expected mercy from my brothers,” he tells her. “And I have learned better than to believe in the softness of Heaven that humans believe in. So tell me this: Why are they so cruel?”

“Nature,” Zadkiel says. He cups his fingers around his mug, looking into his tea with a small frown. “Angels are made with the idea of an anchor. Steadfast in their nature, devotion, and faith.”

“Fall awful fast if dropped,” Crowley bites out.

Zadkiel looks up and gives a wry smile. “Fair point. Terrible. But fair.”

“Then why am I… the way I am?” Aziraphale asks. He pauses and looks above to the skylight. “It’s been difficult, but the Lord said I was made with a mettle beyond testing, yet I am so…”

“I never said angels _couldn’t_ change,” Zadkiel says. “It’s a slow, slow process. I would say your hypothesis is… glancingly correct, Angel Aziraphale. At least, as correct as we are able to understand. See, even God changes, but it’s on a scale so long we can never fathom. Once, She sought to destroy the world. But people, Her children, surprise her.”

“Just Aziraphale, please. Isn’t it a bit… treacherous to be… discussing God like this? It’s one thing between Crowley and I, but… for Archangels…”

“We’re afforded a bit more… leniency, given our position,” Raphael says with a wrinkle of her nose. “As part of the seven, we are only liable to God and the Metatron. And Metatron isn’t keen on starting another war in Heaven. And besides, isn’t understanding a path to loving? Must we not seek understand those we give our love to?”

Aziraphale looks to Crowley, heart flipping with a thrill of pleasure to find Crowley looking at him as well. Crowley squeezes his hand and Aziraphale beams, knowing what the other is thinking.

“Yes, I would say we should,” he says quietly.

Raphael smiles, more angel than human for a brief second.

Crowley grumbles under his breath and Aziraphale snorts softly at the indignant curve of his mouth.

“As it is,” Raphael says gently, “I think now that you are free of fear, you’ll find more and more questions, and that there are other angels who have begun to want ask them.”

“And what of me, of the ones who were so harshly punished for their questions?” Crowley snarls, his fingers tight around Aziraphale’s. “Not that it _matters._ ”

“I’m sorry,” Raphael murmurs. “I can’t answer that. All I can speak for is the Heaven I know of, old friend. Perhaps there are those like you as there are those like us, who find the world too vast and intriguing to abide by the strict binary of Heaven and Hell, and thus found themselves outside of Heaven for all time. I don’t know.”

“‘Course not,” Crowley snaps. “Because there’s no _real_ reason.”

Aziraphale lifts their hands, pressing a kiss to the back of Crowley’s knuckles. “Remember that I beg to differ my dearest,” he whispers.

“ _Hmph._ ”

Aziraphale squeezes Crowley’s hand tight, pouring every ounce of love he can into the gesture to reassure Crowley in that moment. He clears his throat to change the subject.

“If there are angels sympathetic to the humans in Heaven, why haven’t I met anyone?”

Zadkiel snorts. “You were a Principality,” he says as if that explains everything. When Aziraphale only frowns, he elaborates:

“Most angels who are sympathetic to the world are the ones who mingle closely with them,” he says gently, gesturing to himself and Raphael. “Incidentally, they have the most to lose from revealing themselves to their superiors.”

“I’m not—me!? I would never!” Aziraphale splutters. “I would have enjoyed the company!”

“Unfortunately, as a Principality, your desire to protect this space was so strong that it was like you stamped ‘come here and die’ all over London. Demons don’t care about that really,” Raphael says as Aziraphale mumbles something about the mafia and books, “but low ranking angels? They would never. You terrified all those poor children, and they all fled. So, effectively, you claimed London as Eden.”

“Oh dear.”

Crowley snorts. “Bastard,” he laughs. “Always said it.”

“I didn’t realize!” Aziraphale protests.

“They’ll come around,” Zadkiel assures Aziraphale. “Once you settle into your new role without fear, they’ll realize you mean them no harm. It may take a while, but I’m sure you know how hard fear is to overcome.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale whispers.

It took nearly everything to overcome, and then some. If the world hadn’t ended, hadn’t freed them, hadn’t made him face Hell and realized that both he and Crowley were beyond their reach if he just tried…

Crowley’s hand in his, the steady presence of his aura beside him, the rhythm of his knee knocking into his own, the pressure of his lips on his—he would crash, burn, bleed for it. He would fall for this love, and because he was willing, he didn’t.

He loves the world in much the same way. Are there other angels like him? Who love the taste of fresh cream, the sound of a piano, the feel of books and fresh pressed linen as pieces of a craft God has spent all this time nurturing like a small, budding seed?

Are Zadkiel and Raphael so devoted that they would rather perish than be separated?

“I have been favored beyond measure, haven’t I?”

“Like Noah,” Zadkiel says. “God has shown you mercy when She would otherwise destroy you. Both of you. Surely, you feel it, feel the air in the city, where She has banished the Morningstar once more?”

“What?!” Crowley says sharply, standing up so quickly his chair makes the table rattle as it hits the floor. “She did _what_?!”

He tugs his hand free of Aziraphale’s grasp and tears himself from the tangle of leg and chair legs he’d created. The door of the shop bangs as he swings it open.

“He still fears Him,” Aziraphale says softly.

“As he should,” Zadkiel says somberly. “Our masters are people beyond our capacity of understanding. Angels should fear Him just as much as we fear God.”

Raphael turns her cup between her fingers, swirling the dregs of it. “For without our fallen brethren, what power would God hold over humans? No matter how grey the spectrum can become, there must exist two poles between them. We don’t exist in a vacuum anymore.”

Crowley storms back in, gesturing behind him. “It’s—I haven’t, the world hasn’t felt like that since the Garden,” he says. “Not even after Adam, what the Hell happened?”

Raphael and Zadkiel exchange looks, Zadkiel’s brow furrowing as Raphael tips her head at him. They seem to be communicating something without words in the way that people are intimately familiar with one another are prone to.

“Heaven brokered a deal that was not theirs to make,” Zadkiel says, his deep voice soft.

Raphael begins to pick apart a sandwich with her fingers, balling up tiny pieces of bread between her perfectly manicured fingers. “They spoke for God to Satan,” she says quietly. Her voice trembles.

Zadkiel inhales and laces his fingers together. “After Armageddon, and after the two of you thwarted being dealt with… under the table, as it were… Certain things came to light, certain… Things that do not bend or yield when they must break. By revealing that Heaven was dealing with so-called rogue agents without permission or word from God, that is a weakness that cannot be tolerated.”

“She had to make a move to cover Heaven’s ass, is what you’re saying,” Crowley says, drawing his chair up from the floor and collapsing into it.

“She left a message,” Aziraphale says. “In the park, I saw the cards. The love of a righteous man. Who?”

“You, Adam, Crowley, anyone, really,” Raphael says with a smile. “It’s up for interpretation.”

“What of the other Archangels?”

Her smile falls, nose wrinkling in distaste as Zadkiel sighs heavily.

“They were placed under an extensive probationary period,” he says, touching the dagger at his collar. “We have to have _team building_ exercises now.”

“God knows best, but Uriel’s no fun at picnics,” Raphael complains. “And I’ve been praying that no team sports are introduced to Gabriel, but…”

“Are these Heaven-wide…?”

“Some, but you’ll be excused,” Raphael says with a wink. “If you want to go, you can, but otherwise, you really _are_ needed here on Earth.”

“And… for what, exactly? Am I needed for? Guiding the humans back to Eden is… well, if Eden is gone, then what am I doing?”

Rapahel smiles. “I’m glad you asked,” she says, snapping her fingers, producing a small envelope between them. “Eden is no longer a place, Aziraphale, it’s an idea. It’s a place we all hold inside, now, where we seek to know the truth. Our purposes, our desires, our sins and virtues, our places and people and choices—everyone on this Earth, every being blessed with thought desires knowing and being known to some degree. Let them be known. Let them be loved, and guide them to the place where you can be a witness of God’s plans for them. A new age has begun, the world remade, where they must choose on their own. It is a station of heavy weight, Aziraphale,” she says softly. “But God has given you this because you chose on your own, over and over, and believed each choice worthy. You loved the world She made, with its peoples and pleasures, and put her children above old wounds.”

“And you will not be alone,” Zadkiel adds, turning his gaze to Crowley. “For who better to aid the world in their choosing than the one who gave Eve her first choice?”

“...Listen, what I did wasn’t _noble_ ,” Crowley hisses.

“But it was part of the Plan,” Aziraphale says with a small shrug. “So, in the end, we _both_ did the good thing.”

“Ugh.”

“Your mission, if you choose to accept it,” Raphael says over Crowley’s grumbling. She grins, pushing the envelope across the table.

“Oh, don’t, he won’t get it,” Crowley complains.

“What? Are you serious?” Raphael says. “Even _I_ know that one!”

Aziraphale snorts and picks up the envelope, unsealing the golden wax with a butter knife.

“I doubt it will explode when I’m done,” he says primly as Zadkiel laughs at Crowley’s agape mouth. “Darling, surely you realize by now that I lied when I said I’d never been to the cinema in the hopes you’d invite me along?”

Crowley makes a complicated noise that rises in pitch until it’s nearly a shout. “ _No!_ You infuriating—!”

Aziraphale reaches out and pats Crowley’s knee gently, then unfolds the envelope into one long piece of paper. Golden ink shines on the page, catching the light until it looks almost molten, angelic symbols shifting to the roman alphabet.

Aziraphale blinks, then chuckles, angling the paper towards Crowley. Crowley whistles, a sly smirk spreading across his face.

“And everyone says _demons_ are wily,” he says with thinly veiled admiration.

“Well, we all are made in her image,” Aziraphale shoots back, grinning. Crowley makes an indiscernible noise.

The paper curls inward as the letters catch fire, burning without scorching the table beneath.

“Well?” Aziraphale prompts. “Are we up to it?”

“We were pretty shit at it last time,” Crowley says, crossing his arms behind his head as he leans up, eyes studying the skylight.

“I think the boy turned out fairly normal,” Aziraphale chides. “In that dreadful human way normal has become.”

“Is that a yes?” Raphael says, eyes twinkling like the first stars at night.

Aziraphale looks to Crowley, then beams. “It would be an honor,” he says gently. “The Almighty could not have been more merciful, we will gladly see to it.”

“Then that’s settled,” Zadkiel says, smiling knowingly. “We’ll expect reports, but nothing as formal as Gabriel had you do, we’ll let you know when we’ll be stopping by. Perhaps over tea or coffee?”

“That would be lovely,” Aziraphale says, reaching across the table to shake Zakiel’s hand.

After, Raphael takes Aziraphale’s hand in her own, squeezing cool fingers around his. “One more thing,” she says as Zadkiel clears the table with a snap.

She lets go of Aziraphale’s hand, then reaches beneath the collar of her blouse. She tugs a chain from around her neck and tosses it upwards, eyes glowing silver in the light the metal begins to emit.

“I have a personal message from God,” she says, and the chain coalesces into a sphere of pure light, a miniature sun over the tea table.

It spins slowly, the light twisting and roiling as it drifts lower and lower towards the table, then with a pop, it dissipates and drops to the center of the table.

“Oh, Crowley, look! I think it’s electric!” Aziraphale says, picking up the brand new kettle from the table.

It’s tartan.

Crowley begins to swear loudly.

* * *

 

Elsewhere, (specifically in a small village a few miles out from London where the leaves are the most gorgeous shade of crimson, trembling as they hold onto the last clandestine days of fall) a woman with hair and eyes of steel laughs in delight, a boy looks up from a game of fetch, and a witch finds a cottage on her bike ride that previously never existed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 33 He’d tried to summon a simple navy one, but Aziraphale’s angelic tendencies towards tartan were too powerful to completely dissipate. [return to text]
> 
> 34 Though, it seems, the shop is down one particular bookend.[return to text]
> 
> 35 He very pointedly ignores Crowley rolling his eyes and muttering a very mocking obviously.[return to text]


	17. We made a garden of the love we found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaaaaaaand wrap! Thank you all so much for reading, every comment means the world to me! I'm so happy that everyone enjoyed reading and my little side characters, Zadkiel and Raphael!  
> I hope to see you all again soon on a new project! 
> 
> Title from Honeybee by The Head and the Heart  
> As a bonus, here’s a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/bluecoloreddreams/playlist/0BBGJjEYYVzoy18j6bQpVJ?si=kMeoBTBxT0eqoV8IHZURbA) of all the songs used as titles!

It’s quite disconcerting to be making crepes while the antichrist watches. [36]

Adam still has the slightly unnerving stare of someone whose body doesn’t necessarily need to blink, and keeps forgetting to do so. His unruly hair halos his face; Dog’s tail thumps happily beneath feet that don’t quite reach the ground from where Adam sits on a barstool.

“Can’t you just, y’know, make ‘em appear?” Adam asks, nose wrinkling as yet another crepe falls to pieces in the pan. The kitchen of the cottage smells like burnt butter instead of the fragrant scent of the sweet osmanthus that gave the cottage its name.

(Cheekily, the Them and Crowley call it by osmanthus’ other name: Devilwood Cottage, they call it, just because it makes Aziraphale huffy, and though Aziraphale is often huffy, it’s a fun game to play, for when Aziraphale gets tired of being bothered, he simply sets Crowley upon the Them. This often means being spun about in the hammock swing in the backyard until new colors appear.)

“Yes,” Crowley snaps. “But that isn’t the _point_. Do _you_ make things appear?”

Adam looks thoughtful for a moment and shrugs, plucking a strawberry from the bowl on the kitchen table. “Sometimes,” he says evasively. “If I need to.”

“Need to?”

Adam at least has the mind to look mildly guilty as he shrugs and turns away from Crowley’s pointed gaze from behind dark glasses.

“Homework. Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

Adam scowls. “Anathema says I shouldn’t cheat and learn to do it properly. Don’t tell, or she won’t teach us how to use the pendulum right.”

“I might,” Crowley says mildly, managing to slop half the batter across the counter as he tries to pour some out into the pan. “Damn, I mean bless, I mean, _guh_!”

“I don’t get why you don’t just decide you know how to.”

Crowley sighs and grimaces. “That’s not the _point_ , kid. The point is. The point is… well, the point is the _point._ ”

Adam makes a face and steals another strawberry. He looks around the cottage’s kitchen, a strange mash of the homey decor in that would look right in Anathema’s cottage and the sleek, modern chrome he sees in magazines at the dentist’s. There’s a tartan kettle right next to one of those sleek coffee makers that use pods and has ten different settings for everything.

He’s sure that nothing else in the entire world would suit the cottage’s current tenants better. It feels made for them, specifically, and Adam knows a thing or two about making things these days.

“You’re here because of me,” Adam says slowly, rubbing the seeds slowly off of a strawberry with his fingernail. “Because of Armageddon not happening.”

Crowley points at Adam with his spatula. “Ding.”

“What changed?”

Crowley sighs and nudges the browning edges of his current attempt at crepes. “This and that. Bureaucracy. Lateral transfers and all that,” he says mildly, brows furrowing. “Took a bit to wrap up some loose ends in London, what with Aziraphale’s bookshop.”

He carefully attempts to lift the crepe from the skillet, then looks back at the tablet on the counter where a step-step recipe shows a glossy, perfectly cooked crepe and swears. He lets it settle back into the pan.

“Did I get you in trouble? Am I in trouble? Am I _going_ to be trouble?”

Crowley makes a noise that Adam can’t really decipher. It sounds a bit like someone put a keyboard in a blender.

“Yes and no,” Crowley answers evasively. He wiggles the spatula underneath the crepe, the pan scraping against the eye of the stove as he does so. To Adam’s untrained eye, it looks like the pancake is beginning to turn black at the edges.

“I don’t understand.”

“Aziraphale, hm. Flip you _bloody bastard pastry—_ don’t you repeat that!”

“I know how to swear,” Adam says, indignant. “I know all of ‘em.”

“I’m sure you do,” Crowley snorts. “Anyway,” he continues, dumping a smoking crepe into the sink. “Aziraphale has to… he’s, ah…He’s got this gig with humans now, so we’re enjoying a pastoral life, minimal miracles, maximum effort to blend in better. No style whatsoever, but. Meh.”

“So why Tadfield, why keep an eye on _me_ , unless something’s going to happen?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Crowley says. “There’s not been anyone like you before; neither side knows what’s gonna happen next. God, maybe, but God’s not telling. So instead, they send us, ’cause, see, we’re _expendable_  to most of them. Because what if you live forever? _They_ don’t want to waste time on that, mucking about with humans. So why not send the two sods who cocked it up in the first place, who wanted the humans to win?”

“But then, you’re _you_ , a human kid, and they have to pretend they care about the sanctity of  _that_ more than they care about blowing the world to smithereens in a pissing match,” Crowley continues, pouring another batch of batter into the pan. “Which brings us to, well, this: if one side starts to meddle with you, or if you start leaning one way or another, then one of us is _supposed_ to go whining to the big bosses about it, like an early detection system. Which… seems like a poor idea considering that we’re here because we didn’t do that in the first place, but… well.”

Adam picks up a handful of raspberries this time, popping one onto the tip of his pinky just because he can. Crowley doesn’t seem to notice, or care.

“So we get to kip over here and spend a couple of months a year making sure you’re doing alright, not destroying worlds or anything, and Aziraphale gets to bless the town while I make sure nobody downstairs is messing up the joint to tip the scale.”

“What if I _am_ just a human kid? That everything was temporary?” Adam asks, looking down at his hands, now stained and sticky with berry juice. “That one day, I wake up, and it’s all gone?”

He doesn’t sound terribly troubled, simply curious.

“It’s not a bad thing to be human,” Crowley says. “You don’t get a choice in how you’re brought into the world, but you chose what you do when you’re in it, and humans? Have more choices than they realize. That’s why we’re here, the real, true reason. To make sure you have the chance to continue to choose.”

Crowley pauses, then nods to himself; “And in any case, if you’re human, sixty some odd years is… yeah.”

Adam looks up and watches as Crowley tries again, a strange, secretive smile on his mouth.

“Oh,” he says.

It makes sense, now, why the crepes are so important. It’s a bit like his dad when he bumbles about the kitchen trying to be quiet on his mum’s birthday. Adam watches Crowley fuss with the stove and the batter, flour turning the turned-up shirtsleeves gray and pauses for a moment, contemplative. Anathema will never know, and he reckons Aziraphale won’t notice if his hunch is right.

Adam focuses, just for a moment, willing gravity and humidity and the slightly too-dry bottom of the skillet to cooperate for just a fraction of a second.

Crowley manages to flip the crepe and swears in delight. Adam grins to himself. It wouldn’t be a bad thing, he thinks, for life to be like this for a while.

Dog perks up and barks once, nails scrabbling at the slate-tiled floor as he shoots out towards the door, hopping as hazy shadows through the curtains resolve into two familiar figures.

“What I’m saying, my dear girl, is that you’re entirely mistaken on the history there,” Aziraphale says as the door swings open, banishing the smokey smell of failed crepes with the peach-like scent of the blooming osmanthus and crisp late-autumn air.

“Well, obviously,” Anathema says, her voice stern in the way it gets when she’s entirely absorbed in a problem whose answer evades her. “I want to know is why it’s wrong—oh, hello, Adam!”

Adam leans back and waves, grinning as the vastness of love that is Aziraphale’s presence washes over him.

(He’d asked to learn how to feel love like Aziraphale could, but Aziraphale had simply shook his head and told Adam that it was something he had to learn on his own.[37])

“Hello there, Adam,” Aziraphale calls, walking over to touch Adam’s shoulder in greeting. “Crowley! Are those _crepes_ you’re making?”

Crowley makes a noise and an expansive shrug. “I don’t know, what do you think it looks like? I’m doing the tango?” he asks, wiggling the spatula in the air.

Aziraphale makes a beeline for the counter, grinning. “Why, I _love_ crepes!”

“Oh, really? I thought you hated them after the business with the guillotine. Well, my evil scheme has been thwarted,” Crowley mutters, turning a particular shade of pink that clashes horrifically with his hair.

Adam turns to Anathema, watching as she shakes her head at the pair of them.

“Hey, Anathema,” he says, beckoning her close as Aziraphale and Crowley bicker at each other back and forth about the proper filling for a half-torn crepe Aziraphale is insisting on eating instead of the perfectly smooth one that Adam had helped Crowley flip. “C’mere.”

“Yes?”

She leans forward, peering at him with a sly look on her face. He returns it, excited to share a secret.

“Crowley made those because he loves him,” Adam says conspiratorially. “Don’t you think?”

Anathema laughs and tucks a curl behind her ear. “Yes, actually, I think it’s just like that. You’re right.”

Adam grins and hops up from his chair, stealing one last strawberry for good measure. “Thanks for helping with my homework, Crowley! I’ve got to go convince the others that birthday cake is a real flavor of ice cream.”

He waves as he turns, the conversation continuing easily behind him, carrying through the open window of the kitchen and slowly closing door.

“Is it really?” Aziraphale says. “I’ve never had it.”

Crowley snorts. “No, it’s just vanilla with sprinkles.”

“Wait… You _helped_ with his _homework_? Do we have to report that?”

“Oh, that reminds me!” Anathema says, smacking what sounds like paper to the table. “Care to tell me what this is all about?”

As he steps out into the lane, Adam hears the sound of laughter, followed by Aziraphale’s distinctly distressed _oh dear Lord._ [38]

And the world goes on: An angel, a demon, a witch, and a witchfinder have brunch in a cottage with a garden; one day, they will have brunch in a cottage with a garden and a view of sea-worn chalk.

A boy and his dog run down the street to meet his friends, a path that will be well-worn on more streets than this.

And if none of them ever notice the woman taking a leisurely stroll about the world, eager to stretch her legs in this new-old, wistful, hopeful world, then that just means all is according to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 36Attempting to make—as a general rule, beings of divine or occult nature aren’t good at measurements. [return to text]
> 
> 37 He realized Aziraphale was probably right, so he did think about it and found that it was something already knew how to do, that he had always known what it was like to feel loved and to love wholeheartedly in return. He wondered, in the innocent way that children often do, if everyone could feel it too, and just didn’t know what it was. [return to text]
> 
> 38 It was a copy of The New Aquarian, captioned “Angels Among Us?” with a picture of a sand-dune with a perfect glass impression of wing and hand-prints. [return to text]


End file.
